Planning an Engagement Getaway
You’re engaged! Congratulations! You have found the person with whom you are going to spend the rest of your life.
If you are anything like me, then getting engaged has brought on a variety of emotions and questions. You may be feeling a combination of excited, anxious, loved and overwhelmed. You may be wondering who to invite, what date to pick, and where it will be. Or you may have been planning this on Pinterest for years and already have everything figured out. Either way, the upcoming months (or years) may bring on some stress (especially financially) and a lot of your attention may become focused on planning the big event. In these moments it is important to remember the core reason for this wedding: the commitment you and your fiancé are making to each other.
Even though you obviously love each other and are ready to tie the knot, it is easy for the romance to get lost in the chaos that comes with coordinating a wedding. For some couples this may also include cutting out expensive date nights in order to help budget for the big day. While the Low-Budget Bride’s Planning Guide will later include a post about low-cost date nights to give couples ideas on how to still have that intimate time without cutting into your wedding fund, this entry is about having an engagement getaway.
I knew long before my fiancé and I ever got engaged that I would be paying for at least 90% of our wedding, which would mean cutting back expenses as much as possible in order to save for the big day. Keeping this in mind, I decided that once we got engaged, I would take Steve on a trip to not only celebrate our engagement, but to also have one last fun getaway before the majority of my disposable income went into the wedding fund. It worked out well that my boss gave me a bonus in May for managing our accounting/finance department for a month, which was specifically intended to pay for 2 tickets to Disneyland (he knows it's my favorite place). Hoping that our engagement would be happening soon, I planned from the moment I got my bonus that I would use those tickets for our engagement trip.
For those of you who don't know, Steve proposed on my birthday a few weeks later (you can see the proposal here). A million thoughts related to wedding planning started to swirl in my mind the next day, but I was sure of one thing: Steve and I would definitely be taking that engagement trip. I could already tell that we would need a few days to go celebrate on our own, so I began to coordinate our trip.
We decided to go on our engagement getaway 2 and 1/2 months after we got engaged due to some other trips and plans in June, July and early August. During this time I was able to contact a friend/former co-worker at Starwood Hotels to get a discount on our hotel, and also shop around on Etsy for the perfect matching shirts (purchased the set for under $30 including tax and shipping). Additionally, I was able to weigh out the options of going to the park 1 or 2 days, and staying at the hotel 2 or 3 nights. Ultimately I decided that we would stay 2 nights at the hotel and do 2 days at the park. This would require us to drive from Arizona to California early in the morning on the first day of our getaway, but the cost of missing 4 hours of park time (because when I do Disneyland, I do open to close) was a lot less than the cost of staying at the hotel the night before.
Ticket Cost = $217 each for 2 days
Ticket Cost per Hour (park is open 15 hours/day)$217/30 hours = $7.23/hour
Cost to miss 4 hours of park time (for two people) = $57.86
Cost of a hotel night (for two people) = $100
Savings = $42.14
Overall, the engagement getaway was exactly what we needed. We were a little tired on day one after getting up at 4AM, to be on the road by 5AM, to be at the hotel by 11AM and on our way to the park not long after noon... but it was totally worth it! We enjoyed a total of 25 hours at Disneyland/California Adventure over the course of two days (we left the park a little early on the first day to rest up for day two). It was fun to run (and skip) around blissfully, enjoying each others company at the happiest place on earth. Being in love is so joyous that it is reminiscent of childhood happiness, like getting exactly what you hoped for from Santa or scoring a run at your little league game. Disneyland was the perfect place for us to amplify that feeling.
So here's what you've been waiting for, the cost breakdown:
Hotel (Sheraton Anaheim): $300 with Starfriend Rate (including parking, taxes, etc.), but only $200 after a $100 AMEX credit (yay points!). Plus our hotel had a free shuttle to and from Disneyland, so our transportation to the park was FREE!
Park Tickets: $434, but only $9 out of pocket after using my bonus from work and the Visa giftccards I got for my birthday.
Gas: $70 for the whole trip! Extra stops to fill up in Arizona, meant less to fill in California, where gas was significantly more expensive.
Food: $80 total. Half of that was for one meal each day at the park, Dole Whip, and dinner on the way home. The other half was groceries, which covered the rest of our meals and snacks for the whole trip.
Souvenirs: In lieu of the original plan to get the Bride and Groom Mickey ears, I got Steve an Ironman shirt (which he'll wear more often) and an awesome Minnie Mouse bow for myself that is huge and lights up, for a total of about $37.
Soul/Mate Shirts: $28 on Etsy. Plus, we plan to wear them in the engagement photos we'll be taking this winter.
Disney Buttons: Free! Just ask a cast member at City Hall in Disneyland. The cast member that helped us even wrote cute messages on our buttons (see photo slideshow).
Total Cost for our Engagement Getaway: $424
Whatever you plan for your engagement getaway - be it an elaborate trip or a simple staycation nearby - just remember to take some time with your fiancé to relax, remember why you fell, and get excited to spend the rest of your lives together. Though the following months might mean tighter budgets and more nights at home, you can enjoy every minute of it knowing that your next big vacation will be your honeymoon.
Thrifty Tips
Utilize any discounts/rewards that are available.
AAA offers discounts on park tickets for places such as the Disney parks, Universal Studios, Legoland, Seaworld, etc. They also have discounts with multiple hotels.
If you know someone who works for a hotel company, ask them what discounts they can offer to you.
If you have family or friends with a vacation home, talk to them about renting or borrowing it. They may be kind enough to let you use it for free as an engagement gift.
If you have credit card points, cash back options, etc. this is a great opportunity to use them before you start putting all of those rewards toward the cost of your wedding.
Decide early that you want to take an engagement trip, and plan accordingly. Set money aside the same way you would save for anything else. If you receive bonuses or gift cards that you can apply to your trip, use them.
Grocery shop for most (or all) meals instead of going out to eat. Three meals for the two of us plus one Dole Whip ended up being as expensive as the five other meals, all of are snacks (which there were a lot of), and all of our beverages combined.
Cut out an extra night of hotel and drive to your destination earlier in the day instead of the night before. This could save you $100 (or more)!
Look into the price difference in gas between where you live and where you are going. Fill your tank at the cheaper gas stations, even if this means extra stops in the less expensive areas. This way if you need to get gas in a more expensive place, you may only have to fill 1/4 or 1/2 of your tank instead of the whole thing.
If you decide to get matching outfits, invest in something you can wear again for other occasions:
Engagement Photos
Pre-Wedding Events
Your Honeymoon
All of the above!
Overestimate your budget and put the difference into your wedding fund. My engagement getaway budget was $500, so $76 went into the wedding fund after all of the trip expenses were accounted for.
Disneyland will give you FREE buttons for multiple occasions, so be sure to stop by City Hall if you are there for a special reason (i.e. your engagement, wedding, anniversary, etc.).
What Went Well
We rode all of our favorite rides, and most of them more than once (Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad = 3 times each!) thanks to utilizing the fast pass system and the Disneyland Wait Times iPhone app (it's free!).
We had a blast being silly and spending quality time together.
The total cost of the trip was under budget (yay!).
I had the chance to visit my friend Haleigh on our drive back to Arizona, which meant I was able to ask her to be a bridesmaid in person, and she said "yes!"
What I Learned
Though our exact shirts are no longer available on Etsy, there are lots of other options that are similar to choose from, with great combo pricing.
The websites that predict how crowded Disneyland will be on any given day are not always accurate (it ended up being a little more crowded than we had anticipated).
As adorable as my lace TOMS are, they were a very poor shoe choice for a 15 hour day at Disneyland.
