Anyone do Disney Wedding?

Hello everyone.. me and my fiancee are planning to get married sometime in the near future. We would love to get married in Disney, but the costs seem to fluctuate greatly (as do most weddings taking place anywhere).

However, Disney has some basic guidelines. We would probably have about 30 people total, which would fall into the "custom wedding category". Does anyone have any experience in this for what they paid for the "typical" costs associated with a wedding this size. By typical I mean the standard fare - flowers, transportation, chapel, food/drink, photographer, accomodations. I know there is a $10k minimum for custom wedding, but how much over the $10k did any/all of you pay for a wedding roughly that size?

Many thanks in advance..
M

[ June 02, 2003, 12:08 PM: Message edited by: MJL ]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! I don't have any experience with Disney World weddings, but will send this thread over to the Vacation Planning forum for their assistance! [img]graemlins/mickey.gif[/img]

I looked into it last year and I don't recall it being nearly as high in price. I know it was costly, but 10k for 30 people??? I would hope that wouldn't be just for the wedding pavilion location.

My sister-in-law's Sister got married down in WDW recently, and it was VERY expensive. She is a CM and manager (maybe assistant manager) of a Disney Store in New Jersey. I asked her how much it was, and all I got was "Don't even THINK [img]graemlins/nono.gif[/img] about it." from my parents (who are doing the traditional thing and paying for my wedding).

Congrats on getting married!

Check out disneyweddings website for accurate pricing and also request a catalog.

Pam

Are you sure you would have 30 guests? What I mean is, are you positive that everyone will be able to get the time off to make the trip and, most importantly, PAY for the trip?

As we all know, WDW is NOT inexpensive. From KC, 4 people for 3 days,airline and hotel, not including food, would be about $1200.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of off-site weddings, unless the bride is able to pay the expenses of all the guests.

Yes, it is "your day". But it is also your mother's day, your father's day, your grandma's day, etc.

Weddings are one of the few American rites of passage, and it is important for your current and future relatives to be a part of the blending of the families.

As much as I love WDW, if my nephew (who is getting married in October) decided to do it there, I would send a card, regrets, and best wishes, but we would not be able financially to make the trip. To be quite honest, I would also be a little miffed that he made his wedding so inaccessible to his family--seems like a little snub.

Just my opinion. My 22nd anniversary was last week, and I still say what I said on my wedding day:

It's not the wedding that's important; it's the marriage

[ June 02, 2003, 07:30 PM: Message edited by: Gotta Love the TTA ]

I agree with Gotta Love the TTA...My suggestion would be to have your honeymoon there....indulge and make it a dream come true for the two of you....that's just my two cents...

I did not get married in WDW nor do I know anyone who has but I do have a sister who swears she is going to get married there! Anyhow, my two cents is that it IS expensive, but weddings in general can get very expensive. I know mine cost more than $10K and it WASN'T at WDW. And since I don't know your family situation, I'm not sure if making the trip would seem like an "inconvenience" to your guests or if they would look at it as an opportunity. I personally will be thrilled if my sister really gets married there. However, I love Disney and look for any excuse to go there! And on the other hand, I guess I could have gotten married at Disney but I chose not to because I wanted a very large wedding in my hometown. So we decided to honeymoon there instead! I guess this hasn't been very much help but basically, my advice is the same as I give to most brides I know and meet - it's your wedding - do what you want to do. Some people think that you "do what you want to do" means ignore everyone else. But I think that if other people are important to you, you will end up considering them when you make your plans without even realizing it.

Here are some previous posts on this topic that may be of some help:
Intimate Wedding Add-On

Wedding and Guest trips

Disney Wedding

Disney Weddings

Getting Married in WDW

Disney Weddings

Weddings at Disney

Hope these help! :D

A Disney bride here! We were married at the Wedding Pavilion in 1999. We had 63 guests (we're almost local to Orlando) and we did pay the airfare for the few that had to fly down. Not one person minded the trip. We made it very clear that we would completely understand if our invited guests could not make the trip; however, we sent out 72 invitations and 63 people actually attended (not a bad turn out). I have absolutely no regrets what-so-ever. I was pricing a resort in Tampa before I decided that Disney made much more sense, and honestly, Disney was slightly less expensive for what I was looking for. I will be happy to give you more detailed information if you're interested...just e-mail me! ...and congrats on you're engagement!!

[img]graemlins/mickey.gif[/img] Ginnylynne

Well I appreciate everyones help so far, and some points well taken. My biggest fear is that we do in someway alienate some by asking them to travel to our weddding. With that being said, here in NJ it is not uncommon to pay $10k for a 30 person wedding with all of the ecoutrements. We are just at the thinking stage, and might consider flying those people down who might need help financially. The whole Disney idea just came about because we can think of no more magical place on earth to get married, with our guests having a blast while there.

I'm guessing that you are following this thread:
http://www.intercot.com/boards/ultim...655;p=1#000025


Interesting opinions from wedding guests.

10K...does this include food? EVERYthing? We are getting married this october in PA and our FOOD is $75 per person, for 80 guests. We are getting married at the same place we are having our reception. Plus the fee for the DJ, plus the fee for the flowers and photographer, plus the fee for the celebrants....

Now, where would 30 guests cost 10K? just for the service? No food? No DJ? No photographer? Nothing else? Wow....that is pricey! Also does not include hotel rooms for everyone....flights, etc...

My wedding is around 10K complete, including flowers, my dress, DJ, photographers, and EVERYTHING....and we do not have to worry about flying in family.....

Good luck! and really look at the prices carefully. If you are lucky and price is not an object...have fun!!!


Pam

Quote:

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Originally posted by WhiteRose1:

Now, where would 30 guests cost 10K? just for the service? No food? No DJ? No photographer? Nothing else? Wow....that is pricey! Also does not include hotel rooms for everyone....flights, etc...

Pam

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From my reading of it, the 10K is the *minimum* you must spend and anything related to the wedding counts toward that, food, photographer, flowers, rooms people book for the wedding, spa services you might use that is Disney services, etc... all count as part of your 10K expenditure
Reading it like the way I did, it would be *easy* to spend $10K

I'm already married but we have considered renewing our vows, however, what we would want to do would be more in lines with the wedding offers rather than what they offer for vow renewal but we won't be doing it for at least 13 more years (for our 25th wedding anniversary) but I keep looking into it to try and figure out what we *really* want to do...I have a ideas in mind and would just need Disney to *make it happen* type of thing...so I need to win the Lotto to do what I want. [img]graemlins/doubleeek.gif[/img]

According to Disney, the $10k minimum for over 15 guests would include most costs associated with any wedding - the ceremony, transportation, flowers, food, drink, cake, photography.

missing one thing: I am having 80 guests for 10 K...Disney's plan is for 30 people for 10K.. Eeek!

Pam

Yes but I doubt your guests will be able to take the Monorail to your reception ....

:D

My husband and I got married at our local court house and I have wanted to renew our vows at disney ever since. Our 10th anniversary is coming in January so I started looking in to it. The standard package they have didn't have what I want and included things I didn't want. So we would have to go with the "custom." I think the minimum when I checked on it was $7500. Way more than we wanted to spend for us and 10 (imediate family) guests. I e-mailed back and forth with a wedding consultant many times and for every question I asked her, her repy was so confussing that I had 3 more questions I didn't have before.

So how it turned out is that we are planning a great vacation to disney. The whole family is still coming. We are going to treat everyone to Cirque Du Soleil

By the way, the wedding planner never called or e-mailed me to find out why I stopped communmicating with her.

MJL, My wife and I were married at the pavillion in 2000. It was by far the best thing we could have done. We had over 100 guests fly down and they all had an incredible time. As far as cost, it ended up being better in many respects than anything we could have had at home based on everything they did for us and how they pulled it off. We did a few things that saved us some money, for example we found a photographer who was excellent(I can provide that info if you would like). All in all they did a great job and our friends still talk about how much fun they had. Disney made it an occasion we will never forget. I would be happy to give you any information you need. Take care and congratulations!