Share your budget?

[MiaSRN62]

Hope some find this helpful!!! We will be changing some things for sure....but this is pretty close......

 

[sorceressk]

Any DCL brides want to share their budget on here? pretty please?

 

[TiffinyKaye]

Maria--what is the full cost so far going to end up being? On those posted breakdowns...I saw a breakdown of cost for the wedding and some food and entertainment features. Do you have any idea what your full cost will be?

 

[Sarah727]

Hope some find this helpful!!! We will be changing some things for sure....but this is pretty close......

Thank you for posting. My wedding is April 5--maybe we will bump into each other
I did notice you stuck with the motorcoach instead of the vans? Any reason?

 

[MiaSRN62]

Thank you for posting. My wedding is April 5--maybe we will bump into each other
I did notice you stuck with the motorcoach instead of the vans? Any reason?

Hi and congrats!!! It is my daughter's BEO (she's not a DIS'er though). She gives me permission to post on her behalf.

But yes....maybe we will bump in to each other.

And to answer your question about the vans. We are definitely going to switch. We can do 2-3 vans and save about $350 overall making this change

Also we are cutting out a layer of the wedding cake and will be doing a 2 layer mad-hatter style with a sheet cake for extra. This will save about $450.

Cutting the aisle runner for the WP as well ---saves $275

Cutting the cocktail hour in half---just not sure the specifics on that yet. (Saves $800)

Ohhhh....and Disney made a mistake and charged us dinner rates for a lunch buffet ??? We were quite confused by that because our planner said she got "permission" to charge us the lunch amount??? I thought noon ceremony at WP and a 2 pm reception was lunch??? So we're saving there as well----about $5/per person. Working this out still as well. We are finding the menu those most difficult to figure out. If you change anything (i.e substitute or add/drop), one has no idea how it will change things. Individual food prices for buffets are not listed anywhere. My daughter was using the Tony's Town Square lunch buffet as a base but adding and dropping items. Really hard to make changes when we don't know how they price out buffet items.

I hope planning is going well for your celebration

As soon as we get an update BEO I will post it.

 

[Simba22]

Subbing! Date isn't until 2015 but we need budget now! Thank you so much for all of the info that's already been posted!! So helpful!!

 

[MiaSRN62]

Subbing! Date isn't until 2015 but we need budget now! Thank you so much for all of the info that's already been posted!! So helpful!!

You are welcome! I have learned SO much from so many helpful & informative people on this board, as well as reading Carrie's Passporter Wedding book and her listening to her podcasts.

Good luck and have fun with your planning Simba22

 

[TiffinyKaye]

Hi and congrats!!! It is my daughter's BEO (she's not a DIS'er though). She gives me permission to post on her behalf.

But yes....maybe we will bump in to each other.

And to answer your question about the vans. We are definitely going to switch. We can do 2-3 vans and save about $350 overall making this change

Also we are cutting out a layer of the wedding cake and will be doing a 2 layer mad-hatter style with a sheet cake for extra. This will save about $450.

Cutting the aisle runner for the WP as well ---saves $275

Cutting the cocktail hour in half---just not sure the specifics on that yet. (Saves $800)

As soon as we get an update BEO I will post it.

Thank you so much for posting this. I don't know how much our wedding planner is really going to "tell" us (because I think they want the most money possible...), but there were a couple things that you mentioned here that I wasn't aware of. I didn't know you could cut your cocktail hour in half to save money, nor did I know that you could do a two layer cake. I was told there was a minimum on the cake price...but if there isn't for reals, then we will just be insistent with our wedding planner to get costs down.

That said...I don't understand the purpose of a cocktail hour to begin with. We don't really NEED one. We'd love to save money if we could nix it altogether. Plus, we'll look at the van options...

We'll sign our contract and work with our planner to get costs down...

Tiffiny

 

[MiaSRN62]

Thank you so much for posting this. I don't know how much our wedding planner is really going to "tell" us (because I think they want the most money possible...), but there were a couple things that you mentioned here that I wasn't aware of. I didn't know you could cut your cocktail hour in half to save money, nor did I know that you could do a two layer cake. I was told there was a minimum on the cake price...but if there isn't for reals, then we will just be insistent with our wedding planner to get costs down.

That said...I don't understand the purpose of a cocktail hour to begin with. We don't really NEED one. We'd love to save money if we could nix it altogether. Plus, we'll look at the van options...

We'll sign our contract and work with our planner to get costs down...

Tiffiny

Hi Tiffiny,
When I said we're cutting the cocktail hr in half, I meant to say we are cutting half of the food we were going to serve. We will have so much at the buffet we don't necessarily want food to be wasted or guests to get too filled up at the cocktail hour. Some appetizers cannot be stand-alone items....some can be but for a higher price. To my knowledge, the sliders can be stand alone. We had opted for 2 different varieties but will be sticking with only one now for $12.50/pp vs $25/pp cocktail hour. So I wanted to clarify this. But you are correct. A cocktail hour is not necessary. For us, the cocktail hour is a just a time to entertain guests in between the ceremony and reception and/or while photos are being taken. My daughter has a noon ceremony time and the reception is not set to begin until 2 pm officially. I've heard the ceremony is quite quick---maybe 20-30 min top in the Wedding Pavilion? So we wanted a place for our guests to hang before the reception. It's a preference and definitely not necessary. You can cut this from your budget.

As for the min cake expenditure, the minimum guest count for every cake is 50-200. And depending on the cake, the amount per guest can range from $7.50 to $17.50 each. This is all from Carrie's book which has been our "wedding bible" for 7 months now. So to me, that means even if you have 30 people at your wedding, you must at least pay for 50 guests. I might be misunderstanding this and perhaps someone with more experience can chime in.

 

[lurkyloo]

That said...I don't understand the purpose of a cocktail hour to begin with. We don't really NEED one. We'd love to save money if we could nix it altogether. Plus, we'll look at the van options...

Before they instituted the new pricing structure for 2015, cutting your cocktail hour could save you money. We didn't need one either, since we traveled to the reception with our guests (after doing all our portraits together before the ceremony). However, if you fall under the 2015 pricing structure, you have to meet a minimum expenditure just for the reception and cocktail hour, so cutting out the cocktail hour means you have to spend more at the reception and it all evens out.

 

[alyaki]

Before they instituted the new pricing structure for 2015, cutting your cocktail hour could save you money. We didn't need one either, since we traveled to the reception with our guests (after doing all our portraits together before the ceremony). However, if you fall under the 2015 pricing structure, you have to meet a minimum expenditure just for the reception and cocktail hour, so cutting out the cocktail hour means you have to spend more at the reception and it all evens out.

This is true. But in some cases, it's still helpful. We'll see how it evens out, but I know we're thinking of reducing our cocktail hour food to just the cheese dips, because I hate breakfast food and would much prefer the plated lunch meal they mention on their 2015 sample menu. Again, we'll see how it pans out when we get our BEO next year, but if you have a more expensive meal you want, it may be that freeing up some of the money from the cocktail hour will mean that you can still stay fairly close to your food & beverage minimum.

I may be wrong though - again, I don't get my BEO till next year, so I have to wait and see how that will work.

 

[pookie10]

Let's try this again...

This sounds right up my alley! I am a little bit confused on the motor coach thing..is that to get your guests back and forth?? Can't they just take the buses/monorail if staying on site?

 

[lurkyloo]

If your event is inside a park, you are required to provide private transportation for your guests. It doesn't have to be a motorcoach—if you have a small group you can do vans or town cars.

Even if your event isn't inside a park, it makes things vastly easier for your guests if you hire some form of transportation for them, since Disney doesn't provide direct resort-to-resort public transportation. That means that if your guests want to get from, say, Pop Century to the Yacht Club ballrooms, they will have to ride a bus from their resort to a theme park or Downtown Disney and then change buses (or get on a boat)—kind of a hassle, and it could take an hour or more.

 

[Simba22]

Just giving this a bump! Hoping to see more Wishes budgets!

 

[MiaSRN62]

I took Carrie's advice (thanks!) and we're using the vans. Will save us $400 overall!!

Also, may I ask about the specialty drink?? I see you listed Victoria Falls Mist. How do they bill you for those? On consumption? Per guest? I should add....beer and wine is open bar. But wondering if we can add a "on consumption" specialty drink???

Thanks for posting

 

[krissybean]

Anyone out there willing to share their Memories Collection budget?! I'd love to hear your inputs! This thread is amazing.. Dh and I are looking at doing the elopement package in either August/sept of 2014 or mar/April 2015 (depends on how much we can save up by booking time)... Anyways we're thinking with the tickets to the parks, room and airfare, and wedding of course, around $6k.. Any tips on this would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[cheerbearsmiles]

Short Answer: Our Memories wedding on April 21, 2012 (JUST the wedding, nothing else) cost us $1991.

Long answer: when all was said and done, we spent around $7,500 for the entire wedding/honeymoon trip.

This is my budget for my Memories collection wedding circa April 2012. The $1500 is was the money we had paid up to that point (February 2012).

This budget does not include:

• 
  Marriage license ($193.50, plus the cost of stamps)

• Officiant--ours was a family friend who didn't charge us, but unless you know someone, you'll have to pay.

• The required 2 night stay at a Disney resort--We stayed 2 nights and chose the Poly, since we were getting married there. The cost of the room we booked for the same Thurs/Fri/Sat we were there in April 2012 is currently $641/night, but we paid less than that per night since it was 2 years ago and we booked before January. We also got more bang for our buck because we were upgraded to an MK view since it was our wedding.

• Roundtrip airfare from Newark, NJ to Orlando which, if I recall correctly, was about $300 per person

• Lunch for our guests at the Grand Floridian Cafe after the wedding (I can't recall how much this was, but there were 8 of us there, so I imagine it was probably $300-$400).

• Food while we were on property (lunches, dinners, bachelor(ette) party, etc.)

As you can see, I spent an extra $111.18 on floral for my girls and crystals for my bouquet. We did not have a cake.

However, here were a few things we didn't pay extra for. Our DFTW coordinator gave my husband a free boutonniere (value $10.50), our violinist stayed for a little while after the ceremony to play music while we got our pictures taken (no cost associated that I can find, but an extra 10 minutes of music was nice), and hubby and I had AP's, so park tickets were covered.

Outside the realm of wedding budget, but still in the same vein, is the honeymoon--not a necessary cost, but one that most people pay. We went on a 4 day cruise on the Disney Dream, which cost about $2k. Add in extras like souvenirs, spa, and alcohol, and we're looking at $2500 or so.

When all was said and done, I'd estimate that our wedding cost us (including food, honeymoon, etc) $7,500. Obviously, this is a very rough estimate, since we didn't pay for everything in one large lump sum (except for the wedding).

 

[krissybean]

Thank you so much!! This actually helps a lot!! How was the weather in April? We're considering march/April 2015..

 

[cheerbearsmiles]

Funny story about the weather. According to the news, Orlando was expecting rain, thunderstorms, strong winds, and possibly tornadoes on my wedding day.

Our ceremony was overcast, but after lunch, the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. I still heard tornado warnings for the area, but none hit Disney World on my wedding day. I was actually thankful for the clouds because it meant I wasn't being blinded by the sun so I could see my husband's face during the ceremony and I wasn't squinting for pictures.

Here's a link to my photo album: http://imgur.com/a/mZfPb

 

[krissybean]

That's great!! Pictures are awesome! Those are from the Disney photographer? I've been reading people not going with them.. Also, you got to wear your dress inside the parks? I've read that can't be done.. Possibly new thing? So glad yours happened to be at the poly! That's where we want.. Ok.. Hubby to be doesn't really care where or when we get married... I want the beach wedding and had considered getting eloped seems we couldn't afford a huge wedding and reception with everyone we wanted here.. We were looking at easily 15-20k for 60 people no kids! And that's like 1/2 the people we want to have.. So roughly 8k with wedding and honeymoon.. I'm game! Luckily he is too!