Trying to plan a WP/GF wedding at the end of the year?

ppawdisney

Earning My Ears
Joined
May 10, 2018
Hello everyone! My fiance and I are planning on getting married at the end of the year at the Wedding Pavilion, with a reception at the Grand Floridian (though we're not exactly sure where because we don't think we want a ballroom) We are not set on any certain date or month or even day of the week, whatever would be the cheapest. A 5:00 ceremony time with a dinner reception would be our ideal, but we are open to other options if it is significantly cheaper, just definitely not a breakfast reception!

So anyone here that has had a wedding similar or have any idea what some approximate costs would be? I tried looking up some BEO's but I can't find very many. We have looked at the website a million times so any info that isn't found on the website would be helpful!
 
Thank you I'll take a look at that. Does anyone know of any BEO's with similar details that includes the program total? So far I have only found one BEO on this board that includes program total and really want to know what I'm in for!
 
@ppawdisney it really depends on the category of wedding you want to have. How many guests are you thinking? If you are wanting a Wishes wedding, the sky is really the limit as far as price, but as mentioned above Carrie's book has the minimum amount you could be looking at for a Wishes wedding. If you are having 18 guests or fewer, you can do an Escape ceremony with a catered event for a reception (no dancing though, its more of like a fancy meal). Escape ceremonies start at $7,500. Memories is even fewer people, but that sounds like that's not really what you're looking for (its a max of 4 guests). The minimum amounts required to spend for Wishes also depend on the day of the week as well. Here is sort of a rough breakdown, from Carrie's book, for Wishes:

$5,000 Ceremony Fee for WP
$190 per person Food & Bev min for dinner reception; $165 for lunch
$8000 enhancement minimum expenditure for weddings on Thurs, Fri, Sun, or Mon (enhancements are things like floral, dj, photography, etc). If you get married on a Tues or Wed, you can save on the enhancement min- it goes down to $5000. Saturday weddings have the highest enhancement mins, at $10K.

Hope this helps. Definitely, definitely buy Carrie's book! It is SO beyond helpful. There is also a facebook group called DISBrides where I've seen many people post their BEOs so that you could get a better idea on pricing.
 


We're hoping for 50 guests but could cut that down lower if need be. So definitely a Wishes wedding, no way around that. Tuesday or Wednesday is completely fine with me. So basically my question is (without having to purchase a book) is it possible for me to have a Wedding Pavillion ceremony with a reception at the grand Floridian, or possibly even somewhere at Boardwalk resort or Epcot for maybe around 15,000?
 
So for a dinner reception at any resort for your numbers and having the WP, the cheapest option would be (by a very rough calculation) $19,500 before service fees and tax. The cheapest option for a lunch reception would be $18,250, again before any service fees and taxes. If you wanted to be around $15,000, you'd probably have to do a brunch reception which for everything would be around $17,000 before taxes and service charge. These prices would all be higher for a Park location (like EPCOT) because the enhancement minimums are higher for in-park receptions.
 
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We just had a Wedding Pavilion ceremony and brunch reception at Epcot with 33 total people (paid for 39). I had a lot of extra enhancements, but even without those I would've been hard pressed to keep it at $15k. My food was around $3500 by the time you add in the tax and service charge, the alcohol was $2007, wedding pavilion rental fee was $4000 (around $4200 with tax), venue rental fee for the GM Lounge was $1600 ($1704 with tax), and we were required to have a motorcoach to transport our guests to Epcot which was around $1000. Then I had a $10k enhancement minimum for a Saturday.

I think the only one of those that counts towards the enhancement minimum is transportation and maybe venue rental fee? A lot of the Epcot venues do have higher food and beverage minimums while the ballrooms don't have any minimums.

The best way to save money is doing as a previous poster mentioned: having a brunch reception and a weekday wedding. It wasn't my first choice, but I loved our brunch reception and would do it all over again the same way if I had a choice!

Definitely check out the Disney Wedding Podcast - I'll be on there next week talking about my wedding!!
 
The enhancements are floral, photography? video and such? on top of the $15K more or less?
 
We just had a Wedding Pavilion ceremony and brunch reception at Epcot with 33 total people (paid for 39). I had a lot of extra enhancements, but even without those I would've been hard pressed to keep it at $15k. My food was around $3500 by the time you add in the tax and service charge, the alcohol was $2007, wedding pavilion rental fee was $4000 (around $4200 with tax), venue rental fee for the GM Lounge was $1600 ($1704 with tax), and we were required to have a motorcoach to transport our guests to Epcot which was around $1000. Then I had a $10k enhancement minimum for a Saturday.

I think the only one of those that counts towards the enhancement minimum is transportation and maybe venue rental fee? A lot of the Epcot venues do have higher food and beverage minimums while the ballrooms don't have any minimums.

The best way to save money is doing as a previous poster mentioned: having a brunch reception and a weekday wedding. It wasn't my first choice, but I loved our brunch reception and would do it all over again the same way if I had a choice!

Definitely check out the Disney Wedding Podcast - I'll be on there next week talking about my wedding!![/QUOTE
We just had a Wedding Pavilion ceremony and brunch reception at Epcot with 33 total people (paid for 39). I had a lot of extra enhancements, but even without those I would've been hard pressed to keep it at $15k. My food was around $3500 by the time you add in the tax and service charge, the alcohol was $2007, wedding pavilion rental fee was $4000 (around $4200 with tax), venue rental fee for the GM Lounge was $1600 ($1704 with tax), and we were required to have a motorcoach to transport our guests to Epcot which was around $1000. Then I had a $10k enhancement minimum for a Saturday.

I think the only one of those that counts towards the enhancement minimum is transportation and maybe venue rental fee? A lot of the Epcot venues do have higher food and beverage minimums while the ballrooms don't have any minimums.

The best way to save money is doing as a previous poster mentioned: having a brunch reception and a weekday wedding. It wasn't my first choice, but I loved our brunch reception and would do it all over again the same way if I had a choice!

Definitely check out the Disney Wedding Podcast - I'll be on there next week talking about my wedding!!
Thank you so much! That is very helpful. I actually read your whole blog a couple days ago and loved it! I was wondering how much it costs cause it is exactly what we want to do. So do you think if we have t on a weekday and also do brunch we can keep it under that range? I would also absolutely love to have a dessert party at Epcot if we end up with a brunch reception. And then maybe a ballroom or outdoor Grand Floridian brunch reception to avoid any high food and beverage minimums.
 
Thank you so much, AllThingsMickey4! That is very helpful. I actually read your whole blog a couple days ago and loved it! I was wondering how much it costs cause it is exactly what we want to do. So do you think if we have t on a weekday and also do brunch we can keep it under that range? I would also absolutely love to have a dessert party at Epcot if we end up with a brunch reception. And then maybe a ballroom or outdoor Grand Floridian brunch reception to avoid any high food and beverage minimums.

(I replied on my phone and it came out weird, so I'm posting again!)
 

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