Wishes Wedding BEO Woes

[Ms. Polar Bear]

Greetings fellow Disney Brides,

First I'd like to say that I know there are several threads on BEOs--I have followed countless threads, dug 19 pages into each and still not found anything similar enough to my wedding.

Some information on our wedding: Our wedding is December 23, 2011, I have a budget of 30,000, and 128 guests (not my choice). I am almost 8 months away, and we are preparing to do our planning session soon and after reading some of these threads I am terrified. I see alot of people spending well over 30,000 dollars and since I am locked in with this contract I am desperate to see other wishes weddings BEOs.

So is there anyone who is having/had a Wishes Christmas-ish wedding, around 128 guests, Wedding Pavillion, and Grand Floridian Reception? I know it is a lot of detail but even if you have a BEO that is close I would appreciate seeing it. Just to calm the nerves if you know what I mean. Also, did anyone do branches, rather than flowers for centerpieces? How much did you get charged? Thanks for reading my long post.

Sincerely,
Ms. Polar Bear

 

[Princess SarahK]

Hey..first take a long deep breath! Yes, it is doable. What time is your ceremony reception? You would have to do it barebones, but it is doable! Are you planning on having a bar? (this is s HUGE cost) Have the food right at the minimum, do the sheetcake thing that has them hidden in the back and pay for a smaller cake. No one will know and its still yummy!!

Lets say that you have 130 adult guests:

prereception@12.50pp=1625
dinner@70pp=9100
drinks@43pp= 5590 (this is hosted bar, house brands 5 hours total)
cake @ 12.50pp=1625
gratuity on food & bev= 3767.40
tax= 1228.89

WP fee(including tax) =3205.50
DJ-December= 3000--i dont know if that should be taxed


TOTAL= 29141.79

With those numbers you are still given a teeeny teeny tiny bit of wiggle room for decor and stuff. Like flowers, a major domo, chair covers, etc. I suggest going through as many outside vendors as possible!! They will save you money in the long run! Also, a lunch will be a lot less expensive if thats an option. (it wasnt for us) You do technically have availability to pushback or cancel the wedding, you may lose a portion of your deposit but if its a serious worry it may be worth the loss. I would really look into everything in fine detail..you might be surprised.


We are doing a November WP/GF wedding and our guest list is at 155, but we really have no clue as to how many people will come. We are hoping for a lot less!!! LOL, thats so mean but the guest count is whats killer..I know this all too well. We have an excel spreadsheet that is soooo helpful! I can plug in the #'s quickly and see how additions and revisions can impact my budget..that is definitely less than yours.. I know all about cutting costs! Take a deep breath, do some research and really think about everything that matters to you. Good luck! PM me if you want any more ideas or info!

 

[princesswendy720]

If you could get away with just doing beer and wine, that could save some money. Also, maybe DIY your centerpieces and have a friend/relative put them on the tables. I've never seen a tall Disney centerpiece under $150 each.

 

[MissManners]

Hi! Try not to stress yourself out too much, you still have plenty of time! We are getting married in December too, and it is frustrating how much it effects the prices!

What time of day is your wedding? If you are being quoted at $3000 for your DJ (as we were, but we are getting married on a Saturday, so I'm not sure if it depends on the day of the week?), then I would definitely get an outside DJ. The fee for bringing one in is around $900, and if you find a DJ for around $600 (or less!), you will be saving yourself $1500. I would also say to go for the sheet cake too! It's much cheaper and I doubt your guests will even notice.

Floral is a huge expense for a lot of people, but you can really minimize it if you want to. A lot of brides on these boards make their own bouquets and centerpieces using fake flowers and save a bundle. A friend of mine used branches for her centerpieces (see pg. 7 of my PJ), and they turned out beautifully and cost her next to nothing. I also would go with the standard linens, and look to an outside company if you want to upgrade your chairs or anything like that. We are paying $6 a piece for our Chiavari chairs through a Chair Affair, and Disney would have charged us more than double that!

If you decide to do an open bar, maybe you could offer only beer and wine instead of liquor? Or if you aren't big drinkers, maybe try BOC instead of open bar. I saw one bride on a previous thread who saved several thousand dollars doing this.

Just remember that your planner is there to help you! They are used to hearing bride's budgets and helping them work within them. I was looking for BEOs for bigger weddings too (we are inviting close to 200 guests), and it was tough to find them on these boards. But there are a lot of girls who are in the process of planning bigger weddings and have PJs.... I would browse them and maybe contact some of the brides who have had their planning sessions already to give you a better idea of costs.

Try not to worry too much and focus more on getting excited about your planning session! I'm sure it will be fabulous! Good luck!

 

[Ms. Polar Bear]

Thanks all. Well in response to some of your questions:

Our ceremony is at 2:30pm, cocktail hour from 3:30-4:30, and reception from 4:30-8:30pm. We are going to have a sit down dinner and apparently we required to spend 125 per plate.

Your suggestions made me consider candles as centerpieces. Did anyone do candles? Are there any restrictions? We were talking about doing a hosted bar. Our DJ was also quoted at 3000. I might just have to look outside of disney for certain vendors--I'll have to look at which vendors I can substitute though. Thanks for the suggestions, any others?

 

[MissManners]

I might just have to look outside of disney for certain vendors--I'll have to look at which vendors I can substitute though.

Our planner told us since we were getting married in one of the GF ballrooms rather than say an Epcot location (where everything must be through Disney), we were allowed to bring in outside vendors for pretty much everything but food... so you can definitely do your DJ/band, linens/decor, floral, photographer/videographer, etc. from an outside vendor. And the only outside vendor fee that they charge is for music, because you pay to have them set up a stage and sound equipment. Hope this helps!

 

[Desnik]

click on the link in my signature for our VR trip report. On the last page is my BEO along with a break down of all our costs. We had the wedding pavilion, and reception at the Gf but we only had around 48 guests that includes some kids. But some of the prices should help you out some. Also, I had candle centerpieces and you can see pictures of them on my TR and the prices are in my BEO. Hope it helps!

 

[TiggerTink]

You made the statement that you are required to spend 125 per plate. To clarify, I wanted to make sure you knew that the 125 figure could be met with any combo of food and beverage on the day of your wedding. 70/pp dinner + 12.50/pp pre-reception + 43/pp alcohol= 125.5/pp.... minimum met!

 

[chryscrazy]

The cake also counts toward the $125. And don't just look at the menus they send you. You can customize a menu and from my own menu and what I've seen posted on here, the custom menus usually cost less than the suggested ones.

If you get favors through Disney, they also count. For $6 each you could do a favor/placecard combo of a chocolate mickey head with the guest's name.

 

[ckpoodge]

Thanks all. Well in response to some of your questions:

Our ceremony is at 2:30pm, cocktail hour from 3:30-4:30, and reception from 4:30-8:30pm. We are going to have a sit down dinner and apparently we required to spend 125 per plate.

I want to share something with you that our wedding planner talked us in to. We were going to have passed hors d'oeuvres - 3 different ones.

Our wedding planner talked us into having antipasto displays (meats and cheeses). It dropped our cost for the prereception down quite considerably.

She told us that most people want just something small to snack on, rather than something to get full from.

HTH

 

[pezaddict231]

There are definitely areas that you can cut down on. Here are some things we did to keep the BEO manageable:

-cut champagne toast
-cut appetizer course from plated meal
-cut sorbet course
-did cheese display and 1 passed hor d'oeuvres
-cut dessert from plated meal since we were doing a DP, but you can just serve cake
-do single plate options, dual plates cost more
-do BOC, unless you have a lot of very heavy drinkers. We had a few big drinkers and still got a lot back after the wedding
-used outside vendors - particularly floral, Disney charges significantly more; we also used an outside vendor for chairs.
-got a 2 tier cake instead of 3 and had a sheet cake in the back; you could also cut costs by using a simpler design
-all menus can be customized, so just because you see it a certain way doesn't mean you need all those courses. Same with our DP menu, I didn't like one option so I asked them to remove it and it brought the total down.

Hope that helps!

 

[girli565]

Also, look into what fees are associated with using outside vendors. I know that if you hire an outside band or DJ Disney will charge you a $900 stage/lighting setup fee and that's in addition to what you would be paying to the outside DJ you hire. it might just be cheaper to go with Disney's DJ.

 

[decdisneybride2011]

I know when we talked to our planner, we decided on only doing 4 hours of bar instead of 5. We would have it open from 6-7, open up at 7:30 then close it again at 10:30 to give a half hour for guests to "sober up". We are having a plated meal so we cut out the dessert, the appetizer, and cut out one of our pre-reception items. The cost of our dinner was $108 pp. We did the dual entree, so if you only choose one item, the cost would go down. Buffets are usually cheaper, so that's another way to cut down on your cost. HTH!!!

 

[supremecort8]

I would love to know what you decide. We are having about the same amount of people and I would love to keep our budget close to that...

 

[LuluLovesDisney]

I had a smaller wedding at Cali Grill so I can't help with that, but I would be more than happy to look up anything else that I do have on my BEO if you need a price. Otherwise, you might be better off looking at lots of BEOs and just adding the prices yourself. I think candles for a winter wedding would be a gorgeous centerpiece. Surrounded by rose petals, maybe?? Or diamond confetti? It has an "icy" sparkly look.

 

[DisneyDream88]

I am in the process of planning our July 2012 Wishes Wedding right now. We are actually have a 10am ceremony at the Wedding Pavilion on a Sunday. Sounded different and interesting (cheaper too!) to me. We're invited around 65 people and having a cocktail hour at Whitehall and a 3 hour reception at St. Augustine in GF. Right now with the general Disney numbers I've been given the price is at around 18,000. I got a quote for the DJ for $1500 for a 4 hour reception. I am trying to look into a lot of DIY ideas for ceterpieces as well as fake flowers at the ceremony. We made our our save the dates on printable magnets which saved money! I am worried a little about budget too, but I know that we are doing things to already cut costs. We both went to Purdue in Indiana and had to decide between having a big wedding here and having a family only wedding at Disney. It really helps reading other people's experiences with this!