If you had a seriously low cost wedding, come and tell me how!

[LittleLongDog]

How on earth do people manage to get married? The costs just spiral!

Has anyone managed to throw together a lovely wedding day on an incredibly low budget?

And if so, how did you do it?

Meant to add, had my grandmother’s wedding ring.

Immediate family only, so only 15
Registry office.
Second hand dress, that was not a "wedding" dress. Cost £35.
DH in normal suit, bought a new tie to match my dress.

Dinner at a restaurant, from a set menu

Booked a restaurant that seated 27 people in total. 3 course meal and 1 drink for £24/head.
Married in a nice registry office and then walked to the restaurant.
Cake from Costco (£15).
Button holes for 2 witnesses but no other flowers. No evening do.
Cost less than £2000 all in.

Depending on what sort of cake you want, lots of people are happy to bake a "normal" cake.
I bake for friends and family and would happily bake a cake for friends if they asked me.

Registry office wedding, basic dress and suit, pub for a meal after (12 of us) was just over £400 - we had to pay extra for registry office as we didn't get married in our area. 14 years later we have lasted longer than all our friends who spent thousands on theirs. It's the commitment that counts, not the show

I went for artificial flowers for me the 3 bridesmaids and flower girl, only cost 20 quid

Do the people you fear upsetting necessarily want a ceremony? If they don't, I'd get married in the registry office and pay for a meal in a charming place afterwards.

If they want a ceremony, but not necessarily in a church, is there any park close where someone close to you could make a quick ceremony in the shade of a tree or something similar?

From threads here, apparently a good photographer is worth paying for, so I would not save from there.

Oh! That total also included my ring, MIL did my bouquet as a gift

A family friend recently got married (second marriage if it makes any difference) and they had a very small wedding. She bought a pretty dress from the high street and the groom wore a suit he already had and bought a new shirt and tie. Bouquet was small and homemade. They didn’t have bridesmaids etc. The only guests they had were their grown-up children, siblings and parents, plus 1 or 2 very close friends. Think it was about 15 people in total. They had the ceremony at a registry office. Then had a meal in a private dining area of a local golf club. It was all very low key, but they had a lovely time and didn’t spend a fortune.

Church was free and paid £200 for village hall.

Friends did photography.

Everyone brought food for the meal.

eBay dress.

Homemade decorations, and bought our own flowers (did pay for bouquets though).

Lidl booze for toasts. Parents bought wine for tables as their contribution. And had a paid bar for the evening.

iPod playlist instead of band. Made sure it was a great playlist and people were dancing all night.

It was proper cheap and cheerful. We loved it and had so many comments on how great it was. We also had around 250 there which helped make it feel festive!

All together we spent around £3000.

Not a huge number if people
SIL did the wedding cake
We used the village hall. My PIL are heavily involved so we got that for free.
Photographer was a friend who did it cheaply
Evening do was around one of DH hobby so we got the place at a reduced price
(Honey moon was wild camping in scotland
So very reduced cost too!)

The most expensive item was my dress

Register office was about £60 (going back 16 years). Vintage wedding dress (actually a burgundy 50s dress and bolero) from a charity shop, £10. Did my flowers myself - I bought four bunches of burgundy roses from M&S, trimmed most of the leaves and cut the stems, hand tied them then wrapped burgundy velvet ribbon around the stems. Came to about £10, with the ribbon (just bog standard roses which were about £2 a bunch at the time). DH wore a vintage suit that he already had with a new shirt and a buttonhole made from the same roses as my bouquet. My shoes were ones I already had. DH had a silver band ring which cost about £20 and is still absolutely perfect, whereas my gold and diamond band - the biggest extravagance of the day by far! - coat £100 and has long since bitten the dust.

We only had very close family and a couple of friends to the registry office (about 10 people altogether), then we all went to a beautiful local Victorian hotel where we had a section of the bar to ourselves. Our friends and family surprised us by clubbing together to have a small buffet laid on (we were originally only going for drinks) and a cake - just a single tier fruitcake with roses on it. MiL made it and hadn't a clue I was going to be carrying roses, so that was lovely.

A few drinks were had - it was autumn and very cosy - then me and DH went to our room. Other than my ring, that was the other extravagance - I think it was about £180 for the bridal suite. Worth every penny.

So, with a bit of help from family and friends the whole thing cost us about £500, including rings. We got our guests to take loads of photos which were relaxed and natural - took a while to weed out the really good ones for the album but was a fun weeding session!

It can be done cheaply. Remember, it's the people you spend the day with rather than the amount of money you spend that matters. And the actual being married, rather than getting married - although the 'getting' bit is good too!

Strictly no guests. About £1200. Including cottage for 4 nights, registrar, dress, flowers for me and 2DD as bridesmaids, photographer and 2 gold rings (which have welsh gold in them) which were our biggest expense.

What do you class as low-budget? Our wedding came in at around 5k which was a lot lower than most of our close friends who have also married but then I guess it could be seen as high? We had a large amount of guests and a church wedding so it wasn't bad I didn't think at the time for how lovely it was.

Things we didn't bother with:

Flowers apart from bouquet and button holes
Welcome drink at reception (but we did put a lot of free booze on the tables to make up)
Expensive favours
Expensive invitations
Had buffet rather than waited food service
No excessive decorations, had lots of photos around of guests and room was gorgeous anyway
City centre location which came in a lot cheaper for room hire than more country type places we looked at plus we didn't feel like we had to pay for people's accommodation or travel as most guests local or could find a cheap hotel
Did my own hair and make up
Had a friend dj but also had own playlist through ipod and speakers for a big part of day

Good luck!

Not me, a friend
Dress from H&M
Groom’s suit from eBay
Register office
Family lunch at M&S!
Afternoon tea with friends in a hotel. Bride and groom stayed the night.
Bride did her own makeup, hair, nails etc
Bridesmaid was the couples 3 yo DD. I think her dress cane from Matalan.
They each had their sister as a witness.

Oh and we spent very little on wedding rings as we're both rubbish with jewellery and of course both rings were lost within a year anyway!

OP the room you actually get married in at the Register Office is usually pretty lovely, even if he building is grim. Ours was beautiful - pale green and gold colours scheme, velvet upholstered chairs for the guests, lots of flowers and you choose your own music to walk in and out to (although you're not allowed anything religious). We wrote our own vows, too. You can arrive separately so you don't see each other beforehand - DH waited in a side room with the registrar before I arrived.

Just the two of us, registry office, meal out afterwards and a night in a hotel. Add that to the cost if the rings, we prob spent a grand.

The actual cst will be insignificant as 27 years ago TODAY.

I hired the dress, plastic bouquet with the dress.
Friend made a cake and charged for ingredients.
Friend did hair and make up free.
Got friends and family to take photos of everyone there. Asked for lots of us ie cutting cake, signing register.
Used my old church so only had to pay the same as registry office.
Had a cheap one course sit down meal, no bar.
No honeymoon as moved into new home and couldn't afford one.

Registry office on a week day and therefore much quieter; my outfit was from a fairly naice shop but was in the sale. Flowers from the garden, guests took photos and we went for a pub lunch afterwards. Had a garden party on the weekend. All nice and relaxed. I could not have coped with a massive production number.

cake - they sell plain white ones in supermarkets for about £10 and pretty ribbon is a few pence a metre - if you want a topper get one off ebay or get a small posy of flowers

flowers - market or supermarket and tie up with same pretty ribbon - by us you can get bunches of lilys or roses on the market for about £4, or gorgeous gladioli are only £2 in Asda, tied up with ribbon they are quite dramatic

photos - can you ask your guests to email you all the photos they take on the day, with a bit of creativity (cropping etc) you could make a nice album, and then get any you want printed done at Asda (70p each)

venue - I know you said the registry office was grim, but is there a local park or any green space that you can walk to, or someone's garden

dress - charity shops have some gorgeous ones, and you can at least try them on, ebay might be a bit 'pot-luck' with this. Ditto grooms suit and any bridesmaids dresses

food - do you know anyone with a costco card or similar?

music - that's what phones are for isn't it, make a soppy playlist and off you go

Have a great day, congratulations Little

We'll, if your budget is £100s... You need to be realistic in your expectations.

Limit people.
Limit food.
Limit location.
Wear "normal" clothes.
Don't bother with all the nonsense.

Get married, don't have a wedding.

I bought a top and skirt sort of suit from French Connection, pale yellow, about £50. He wore a suit he had picked up from the Barras. We married in a registry office. We had about 15 people there. Very close friends and family. We then went to the pub across the road where a friend had laid on champagne. Then we went to a nearby seafood restaurant, paid for by our guests, their gift. We stayed in a nearby hotel that night and went to Spain the next day for 10 day's. When we came home we had a big party for everyone.
My mother had not long died and I couldn't face a big do and my dad had died about 2 years before. No close family here and he had little family. All in about £500 for the day. I can't remember what the party cost. It worked for us and our circumstances at the time. I still have very happy memories of an intimate and fun day.

Dress from ASOS. Friend did the cake. Niece did the photos. A friend and I did all the flowers and decorations (bunting, etc) Mum made the favours boxes. Registry office wedding, booked a wing in a naice country pub for the reception. We provided champagne and wine from Aldi for the first part of the day. We paid for a 3 course sit down lunch for everyone, and an evening buffet. Less than 5 grand the lot.

We spent £190 and got married earlier this month. My DH is ill and had major surgery the following day, we ended up getting the normal marriage notice waivered and got married within 24hrs. Two friends came down as witnesses and it was really quite lovely. We are waiting for him to finish his treatment before we celebrate. After 20yrs together it was probably the only way we would get married as we argued every other time!