Wishes with less than 20?

[Wildcard]

Hello all, I'm hoping some insiders can help me with a little problem that has cropped up for us. We're tentatively planning a Wishes wedding for April 2014 for a total of 18-23 guests, including myself and DF. I was under the assumption that if we show up with less than 20, we'd just have to cover the cost of two people. Today though when I talked to Disney, they said that if we have less than 20 people we will be bumped to an Escape wedding and lose half of our deposit! Is this true? This is counter to everything else I've read, so I'm hoping this is one of those cases where an individual wedding consultant has it wrong...

We won't know for quite some time whether the last group will make it or not, and I'd rather get planning now instead of waiting for the Escape window to open for next April. We had our hopes set on a Wishes location, too. Any insight would be appreciated.

P.S. I've been lurking this wedding board for a little while now...thanks for all the helpful discussions!

 

[bradleyjess]

I'm not sure what the actual rule is, but do you think you could find 1-3 extra people to come to your wedding?

 

[Wildcard]

We really have been avoiding it. We've decided that we only want to invite immediate family, as inviting friends will inflate our wedding to a size larger than we want. It may come to that, but we are really, really trying to avoid it. We are instead having a reception when we get home for extended family and friends. It may be we end up having to plan Escape, but we were looking at some non-Canada Epcot locations, and don't mind covering the difference if we have less than 20. Additionally, we get put back the waiting game until the Escape window opens up for next April.

 

[andeesings]

This seems super weird to me. Wishes has higher minimums than Escape. So if you hit your minimums, why would they care how many people you had? You'll be spending more money. Isn't that something they would want? Perhaps you just spoke to the wrong person. Plus I could see some brides just preferring Wishes anyway because of the customization options....

 

[bradleyjess]

^^ That's what I thought, too!

 

[DisMie]

Hi! I got married at the Wedding Pavilion on 4/23 and had a Wishes wedding with 18 guests. (I had three under three, but they don't count.)I told my planner when we upgraded from the Escape that we might not hit 20 guests and she said it was fine as long as I met my minimum.

 

[DisneyDudet]

No idea what the reasoning behind the rule is, but is there. I will have 17 or 18 guests at my escape wedding. If I were to have 19, they would make me have a Wishes wedding. If I had 6 or less, I would have to downgrade to a Memories.

You can still customize an Escape wedding, just not as much. You are still eligible for MK shoots, etc. The biggest difference is more in the locations, especially in the form of a reception. With 18 people, you don't really need a big reception anyway.

For it to be really worth your money in minimums, you may want to have more than just 20 guests... It's a big jump in dollars when you go from 18 guests to 19!

We get married October 21 of this year at the WP!

 

[Wildcard]

Sounds like conflicting information...I may just need to call and ask for a supervisor or something.

A follow-up...what would the cut-off be for them downgrading us? I can always plan for 22, but if I have one group back out at the last minute, putting us at 18, surely Disney wouldn't disrupt all of our plans by changing venues, etc. Right?!

 

[clarabella]

I wanted a small wishes I was told no and that I would be invalidating my contract if I had less than 20 despite going way over minimums!

 

[smeagol14]

I wanted a small wishes I was told no and that I would be invalidating my contract if I had less than 20 despite going way over minimums!

That really is surprising. you would think that as long as you hit the minimum it would be no big deal