westie said:
For those of you who had the "full blown" wedding with characters and over 25 guests, just out of curiosity, how much did your parents spend?
Well, we didn't do the whole wedding at Disneyworld, but not for lack of trying!!!! We looked into it, and an intimate ceremony (with 6 guests, no officiant, etc) had a MINIMUM EXPENDATURE of $7,000 (this could not include honeymoon time, hotel rooms, bridal gown, etc - this had to be spent on flowers, cakes, reception stuff, etc. It did not include an officiant either.)!!!! HoLY COW!!!!
DH (dear husband) and I were both in our 20's (he was 24, I was 21) and working hard, but there was NO WAY IN HADES either of us could afford this (even with our year to save up for it). My folks pretty much said, "Here's $5000.00. Do what you want with it. Throw a $50.00 wedding and keep the rest if you want. It's up to you." We had a wonderful wedding in our hometown (my hometown - he moved from Boston, MA to Escondido, CA to be with me - talk about cross country!) and had a great honeymoon in Disneyworld.
I'm REALLY glad we didn't do our wedding in Disneyworld at the time, in hind sight. See, we got hitched 12/1/2001... that's right, about 3 months after 9/11/2001, when the world trade centers fell. As it was, we invited 250 people to the wedding (most from his friends/family in Boston) and only 75 people showed up. Everyone canceled after 9/11. No one would fly to see us tie the knot. (But it was an important turning point! We now know who our true friends are! Oddly enough, the people too scared/ashamed/whatever to fly, didn't bother to keep in touch afterward either.) Can you imagine the money we would have been out if we'd done something crazy like rented out Fantasyland or something?!!!!
We do plan on throwing a vow renewal though - Disney style (either at sea or at WDW/DLR), eventually!

It'll be small, but great, I'm sure.
We did have some disney at our wedding! We invited all of our friends and family to the rehersal dinner and announced that we'd both be wearing "hidden mickeys" to the altar and encouraged folks to spot them! I wore a crystal mickey tattoo that blended in perfectly with the long lace sleeves of my gown. He (cheated) wore an electrical tape Micky on the back heel of one of his shoes! We had fun finding them later and showing them off to each other!
~Jay