Budget

[mandasbutterfly]

Hi everyone! We are still a couple years away from the wedding but I was just wondering about the costs to see if Disney will really be a possibility. We want to get married at the wedding pavillion and are not set on a reception location yet although we are taking a liking for the Grand Floridian. We have a budget of $15,000 and will be having about 30 to 40 guests attending. Think this is possible?? Thanks everyone!!

 

[ahutton]

You never know exactly what the future will hold as far as minimum prices, however, we were married 7 years ago, and the minimum cost of a wedding has only changed slightly since that time. Same for the food/beverage minimums in most locations. While you may not be able to do exactly what you can today on your budget, I'm confident Disney will have a wedding that will accommodate both your budget and your guest list. If I could pass along any bit of advice, try to schedule a trip about 1 year prior to your desired wedding date, and arrange a meeting and tour with a sales manager. Be open to their suggestions, and be up front about your budget and priorities. There were many places we saved money, none of them were noticed by us or our guests. Almost all were the suggestions of our first wedding coordinator!

 

[ellieb]

mandasbutterfly 15,000 is for sure plenty to have an absolute beautiful wedding in diseny. I just had mine in May of this year and it was held at the wedding pavilion, we had 2 limos, major domo, 2 beautiful boquets of flowers 2 boutinners and 2 corsages. reception was held at Yatch Club Asbury D Hall with guest of 22 we had fairytale curve champange and open bar with lobster tail and filet minon, DJ for 4 hours, characture artist and our cake had the cinderella white chocolate castle on top. Afterwards in the evening we had our Illuminations dessert party at the lower UK with champange there as well. All of this cost me
11,420. I must mention that I did hire and outside vendor for our balloons which was www.OrlandoBalloonsByDesign.com they did such a beautiful job for 1/2 the cost that Disney had to offer, I also had all my centerpieces done by a family member and I purchased my own favors and invites and candle and bows for ceremony, lastly I hired www.stvsweddings.com/gallery to do my video. If you like you may view a demo clip of my wedding at his site. Click on the image that says Congrats Ellie and Louie May 3rd 2003. If you need any help or have any questions at all with anything please dont hestiate to ask. I would be more than happy to help.
Good Luck to you and its never to early to start planning.

 

[mandasbutterfly]

Thank you so much ellieb!!! You have given me the greatest vote of confidence!! I didn't realize that Disney would allow you to use a different vendor for balloons and flowers so that is a major help! I think I will use your suggestion for the balloons and definetely your video company. I viewed yours and loved it so much! I can tell you had a wonderful fairytale wedding and hope mine will be the same. It is still a few years away but I am addicted to the planning and research already. I will be taking you up on your offer for advice sometime during my planning process I am sure! Thanks again for the wonderful help! I am smiling now because I am sure we can make it work.

 

[ellieb]

Im happy that you are more comfortable with knowing that yes you can have your wedding at Disney with 15,000. I know that your wedding will be the most Magical Day in your life as it was mine. It will be a day you will never ever forget, Trust me! Outside vendors are always welcome. The only outside vendors that are not are food vendors. All food must be done by disney.
I must say that the balloon vendor as well as the video vendor I chose were top notch. I did so much research on them and they came out with flying colors and once I seen my reception hall how beautifully decorated it was with balloon and then met my video guy and wife Stan and Bonnie and seen the video. I was totally in awe. I actually already hired the STVS for my vow renewal in Disney for May 3rd 2005. Thats how good he is.
Here are a couple of site that I went to for favors and such I hope they come in use for you.
http://www.wrapwithus.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=wwu&Product_Code=X#3834
These are guest place cards that were set up outside the hall for all guest to know where they were seated.

http://www.wrapwithus.com/Merchant2...ode=wwu&Product_Code=H#4400&Category_Code=Clk
These were favors for the females.

http://www.wrapwithus.com/Merchant2...ode=wwu&Product_Code=M#4601&Category_Code=Msc
These were favors for the men along with
http://www.wrapwithus.com/Merchant2..._Code=wwu&Product_Code=Y#1200&Category_Code=Y

For the children I gave them goody bags with bubbles coloring books and for the girls cinderella precious moments doll and the boys a lanyard with some pins to start them off with the pin collecting.

These are the table cards I used for each table so guest can find there table.
http://www.fairytalebridalshop.com/tbc.html

These are the wire carriages I bought and spray painted them white and had a family member add flowers and made a pillow with a glass slipper on it inside.
http://www.aandsnovelty.com/macmain.htm

I also had them scatter silver jordon almonds on the tables to give sparkle with the votives that I had scatter around which i only paid 59 cents for 4 at a party store. The siver almonds are cheapest at this site
http://alwayscherished.safeshopper.com/11/1161.htm?837.

Also if you go onto ebay and enter in cinderella wedding you can find alot of things really cheap. I also had champange bottle bubbles at the ceremony and beanie babies for the children to keep them occupied and the pew bows were made for me by a family member she added cinderella slipper to them just like the ones that you can find on ebay.
Well I hope I didnt overwhelm you with all this I just had so much fun planning my wedding and want to share my research if it will help at all.
If you need any other info as I stated before dont hesitate to ask.

 

[mandasbutterfly]

Thanks again ellieb! You are the best!! Thanks for all the tips! I am going to spend some time checking out the sites you gave me. They seem to be a great and idea and a wonderful way to cut the costs. I have always imagined helping make the table centerpieces and party favors and was worried if I chose Disney I wouldn't be able to so again you gave a smile to my face. I am so excited now and I am ready to start buying some the things I will need. I have some crafty people in family and I am sure they will help with the bows and things as well. I really appreciate all of your help and your ideas. Some people I know are not as willing to share their tips, so I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate it! Thank you

 

[ellieb]

mandasbutterfly - I completely know what you mean when you say "Some people I know are not as willing to share their tips". It was frustrating to me that no other Disney brider would help out with some questions that I had in the past however with alot of research on my part I was able to have the most MAGICAL wedding ever, and if I can help another bride have a day just as MAGICAL as mine I am more than willing to help. So please if you have any questions at all dont hesitate to contact me I will let you know exactly how they do things and what to expect and which hair and make up do-o to ask for.
Good Luck to you and have a good time with you planning.

Dont forget me

 

[mandasbutterfly]

I just wanted to thank you again ellieb! You are the best! I tried to e-mail you and I am not sure if you got it or not so this note is just in case you didn't. You have been so helpful! I now have so many great ideas from the websites you suggested. I am technically not engaged yet hehe! My boyfriend and I have picked out my ring and he is in the process of paying for it right now and I am sure it will not be to long before he asks. We have jumped the gun a little by already talking about where we want to get married but I like that. We are both on the same page about Disney and that make me so happy and our parents are too! They have rushed us a little well our moms have I should say but they are just excited to help plan a wedding. I will not forget you and I will be coming to you for more advice in the next couple years as we plan our wedding. You will also be hearing from me as soon as I am officially engaged!! I am so happy and cannot wait to get this Disney wedding started. I spent a lot of time looking at the websites you suggested and have some great centerpiece ideas and much more all thanks to you! I appreciate all your help more than you know! I am definetely going to use the STVS I think that is what you said to do our video. I just wanted to again say how great yours was and know they will do a wonderful job! Thanks again!!!

 

[marn913]

I have to agree also -- you definitely CAN have a disney wedding for under $15,000! We just got married at the wedding pavillion and had our reception at Epcot's living seas. We had 33 guests and our grand total from Disney was about $10,800. The only outside vendor we used was Randy Chapman for photography, which was an additional $2600 (and this included all of our alblum prints). My in-laws took care of the cost of our honeymoon.

Everything was absolutely wonderful! There have been some posts on the boards about people not so happy about hair and make-up from Disney - but our experience was great. They were on time and very professional - everyone looked great. We cut corners on the floral (we are from Chicago - so since we couldn't haul extra flowers with us or send centerpieces home with guests, we decided on simple bouquets and an alter arrangement that was transferred over to the reception and the flowers were used around our sweetheart table and around the cake table -- do not underestimate the beauty of rose petals and candles for your reception -- they are MUCH cheaper than centerpieces! Our table arrangements for the reception cost about $10/table (living seas has small tables, so this worked to our advantage). Also, we printed our own invitations, place cards, and programs on our home computer. We bought a box of 50 invites from Target (with envelopes and response cards) for $20 and designed them ourselves using powerpoint. A set of 50 printable place cards was $4 and the programs ended up printed on regular copy paper (we tried the matching ones we bought at target, but the boarder caused streaks on our inkjet printer). They looked great and we got a ton of complements on how cute they were!
Also, we had a caricature artist as entertainment at the reception (~$500 for 5 hours) - most of our guests went home with a sketch. We decided not to have a DJ (that would have run about $1100) - most of our friends did not bring a date and the rest of our guests weren't really dancers. Instead, at our coordinator's suggestion, we brought down a cheap CD boombox ($20) and a Frank Sinatra CD -- they had it all set up in a corner playing when our guests arrived - no one even mentioned the fact that there was no dancing!

All in all - any place you choose at Disney is exceptionally beautiful. Along the way do not get discouraged if you don't talk to your coordinator every day (or every few months) - all they need you to tell them is what you want. Make sure all of your "wants" show up on your final estimate - and just show up! That is really all there is to it! Good luck.

Marne
06-16-03
WP/LS

 

[ellieb]

mandasbutterfly- Yes I did receive your email sorry I have not replied sooner. I am so glad that I was able to help you out. I do have many other ideas to help you out for your future wedding. So please dont hesitate to contact me I would love to help you out in any way I can. I forgot to mention to you that including in my budget as well I had Mickey and Minnie mouse appear at my reception. So please note that your wedding will be just as Magical if not better.
When you do get that ring on your finger please let me know I would love to hear it finally happened and the planning stages are going to begin. Im so excited already for you.
Oh and have you found a dress that you liked yet??

 

[mandasbutterfly]

Thank you marn913. I have so much faith now. Your wedding sounds like it was wonderful as well. I am considering the living seas as a reception option also as we are both fans of fish and corral reef. One of our hobbies together is taking care of our fish tank. Thanks so much for the advice, I apreciate it. I was also just wondering about how to a table at the living seas?

 

[mandasbutterfly]

Thanks again ellieb! And don't worry about taking time to get back with me. I just wanted to make sure that you received my thanks! I am so excited! I will be letting you know when I get the ring on my finger but I am not really expecting it until early next year hehe! We are have great chats about the wedding and I am so excited. Thanks to your sites my mom and I like those carriages and are thinking of decorating some of those and adding silk flowers possibly to cut costs. She also has a disney embroidary machine and made a mickey and minnie in their dress clothes with our names on it on a towel for us just to see the pattern and we loved it. We are going to find a way to use her machine for somehting in our reception. We are thinking maybe a table runner or something. Any way thanks again for all the wonderful help and sharing your excitment with me. You will be hearing a lot from me for the next few years as we plan especially once we are offically engaged.

 

[mandasbutterfly]

Oh ellieb the dress... I have been doing some lookin online and have found a few things I like. I am open for suggestions of course because my wedding is still a few years away. I haven't gone and tried any on yet. I am going to wait until we are engaged for that. I am affraid to order online I must admit because I want to try it on first. I do however welcome any ideas for dress and can always go to a local place here in search of the dress or see if a store here can get the dress for me. I must say I really liked your dress from your video and kind of have something like that in mind but again I won't know what dress until I try it on. Thanks again and if you have any suggestions let me know!!!

 

[ellieb]

mandasbutterfly if you were to get a dress that was just plain at the bottom you could have your mother embroider the mickey and minnie around the bottom of the entire dress. That would be really special. Where did she get the embrodiory machine that has mickey and minnie on it? This would also be nice to have them imprinted on favors. Like a towel set for each family with their names and the date of your wedding or a hankerchief. As for the centerpieces, what I did was I had the co-ordinator place a disney flatened coin under one of the placing before anyone arrived so that I would not know where it would be and then at the end of the reception we asked our guest to lift the table cloth
where they were sitting to see if they had the coin at their spot. If they did they were the winner of the centerpiece. This was a big hit because everyone wanted these centerpiece because they were so beautiful. I also had disposable camaras on each table with cinderella camara covers for my guest to take pictures. I collected these at the end of the day and had them developed at the Yatch club store. I loved seeing them due to the fact I could not be everywhere on that day, so I was able to view what other people where doing through these photos. Well at least until my FANTASTIC video from STVS came in. Then I was able to relive the entire day. I cant wait till you tell me your engaged. Please dont forget me.

 

[mandasbutterfly]

Thanks again for the ideas ellieb. The towel set is a great idea. I am not sure where my mom got the embroidary machine but I will ask her and let you know- she is out of town right now. I think it is some kind of disney embroidary machine or maybe a regular embroidary machine and she has a program where she downloads patterns from the internet I believe and she has a ton of Disney ones. I think she was looking at them on e-bay but I am not sure if she got from there or not so I will have to ask her! That was a neat idea about the coin and the centerpeices. I may have to do something like that too ;-) I will not forget you and will let you know when I am engaged don't worry! I will be so happy everyone will know!! I am sure I will be in much more contact once I am engaged and we start planning! I saw those cinderella camera covers too and I want to get them as you did. I like the idea!! I took another look at your video by the way and noticed the centerpieces and they turned out absolutely beautiful!!