First Crack at the Finances of a Disney Wedding

Full Disclosure: This is a backdated post. I wrote it after the blog was created, but have written it in the style of an in-progress blog so that anyone reading from the beginning will get a more sensible narrative than time-jumping like the USS Nimitz through our wedding planning.

Since Girl Scout Fiancée and I are going to be paying for our wedding, honeymoon, and now a party in Seattle ourselves, the cost of the entire venture is on my mind pretty much constantly. The big challenge for me is that, while I don't want us to sink into debt to pay for the wedding and honeymoon, I also don't want to cut corners and feel like we cheated ourselves in some way. After all, you only have one wedding, and this is going to be something we look back on for the rest of our lives. Couple that with the fact that Girl Scout Fiancée has never been to Disney World, and I want to make sure she has an amazing time on the honeymoon, and I need to start working now to budget things out.

So, I've built myself a budget spreadsheet in Excel that should help us track the ongoing costs of the wedding. I'm using the PassPorters Disney Weddings & Honeymoons book as a basis for a lot of my financial calculations, and thought I know a lot can change between now and 2014 it seems to be the only starting point I have.

Thankfully, technology has made it easier than this to grasp the reality of your costs.

Some of our costs are already known quantities; for example, the cost of the Escape wedding package is right there on the Disney Fairytale Weddings website. Others I can estimate pretty well, like the cost of our hotel, the cost of a round of golf, the cost of the marriage license, etc. Others...well, I have no idea.

Here is what I have come up with for an expenses list right now:

Wedding Expenses

• Escape Wedding Package
• Airfare for three (myself, Girl Scout Fiancée, and our officiant)
• Rehearsal Dinner for immediate family
• A round of nine holes of golf for me the morning of the wedding (I can't think of a better way to relax before the big event)
• Wedding Rings
• Wedding Dress
• My Suit (If all my weight loss plans go well, I may need more new clothes than this)
• Marriage License
• Post-Wedding Dinner/Reception
• 4 nights in a hotel for us
• 2 nights in a hotel for our officiant
• Gifts for the Maid of Honor and the Best Man
• Tickets for Universal Studios (Girl Scout Fiancée has declared that we are going to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and I obey)

Honeymoon

• Hotel for 9 nights (I expect to need that full amount of time to introduce Girl Scout Fiancée to Disney World properly)
• Food (this is going to be one of the bigger expenses, because if things go as I think they will over the next year I'm going to be ready for all the fine dining in Disney World)
• Special Events (I'd love to do the walking safari at Animal Kingdom or one of the private boats for Illuminations, two things I have never done before)
• Souvenirs
• Tables in Wonderland membership (my parents swear by this, and I can't find any flaws in the plan).

Seattle Party

• Venue Rental
• Food Truck
• Beverages (including Men's Room Red!)
• Bar Service
• Dessert
• Plates, Cups, and Silverware
• Decor
• Photography (we're thinking of having Bethany from McG Photography, who did our engagement photos, come to the event and be a photographer)
• Invitations/Postage
• Thank-You Cards

That's...well, that's daunting. The initial estimates I put in for all of these, when totaled up, really made my eyes bug out. Of course, I haven't put in any potential discounts or other sources of credit (like Annual Passholder discounts on the hotel, or any gifts we receive from other people). The thing that is really surprising to me is how much of the cost of the wedding is wrapped up in things outside of the wedding itself. I may also be crazy overestimating costs of things like food, but I'd rather be prepared for the worst than have something surprise me.