Registry office wedding - did you have one?

[MaizeBlouse]

DP and I have been together for 8 years and have 2 DCs. We're not married or engaged as this has always been something neither of us have been that bothered about. We are relatively young still (early 30s). Lots of my friends are getting married (covid aside) and are all planning or have had big weddings with 100s of people, costing them thousands of pounds. That is what they wanted and I'm sure they loved every minute of it so I'm not bashing this style of 'big wedding' but this just isn't what me or DP would want at all and tbh it just sounds like such a huge amount of money for one day!

Are tiny weddings more common than I think? Never hear of anyone having a handful of people present.

We've chatted before and said that if we did get married we would just want to go to the registry office and have probably only 10 or so people there. We both have big families and lots of friends so my worry is that we would upset lots of people by not having everyone there iyswim. My DM in particular would want me to have aunty's and cousins etc who I'm not close to invited and I just would hate this so much.

Did you have a really little wedding and did you offend people by doing so?

Oh and we had a meal for twenty in a local restaurant in the evening of the wedding day. Plus more photos in friends parents garden.

Totally outed myself if anyone is reading this. Those who cared for us weren’t offended. Those who may have been offended don’t really matter tbh!

My son and DIL did with her parents sister and partner, me DH and daughter. It was lovely, the registry office was beautifully laid out. Looking at the photos you would think they were married in a castle. We all went for a meal at night and they did have a massive party 7 months later.

While the wedding industry likes to promote surveys that suggest most people spend a small fortune on weddings, in reality lots of people have small ones. You’re just much less likely to hear about them because fewer people get invited and it’s a bit rude to talk up your wedding to a people who aren’t invited. There were 280,000 marriages in the U.K. in 2017, and the industry was expected to be worth £280 million. That’s just £1,000 a marriage (a far cry from £27,000 the industry kept telling brides was the average spend).

We had a registry wedding with just our parents and then a reception with about 30-40 people, probably half family/half friends, which we did for about £20 a head nearly 30 years ago. I liked it, it was just right for us, but it’s bigger than you’re envisioning and that’s fine too. I’ve attended a lot of weddings over the years and of my top 5 (as a guest) 2 were huge and 2 were smaller than ours (and 1 somewhere in between). I find myself sort of awestruck by some of the fancier wedding plans I see but not actually wanting them and definitely not wanting to pay for them. The size of the wedding isn’t the important bit, it’s the marriage that counts.

I eloped, had 3 witnesses at my registry wedding. No one was offended and a few people even sent presents afterwards. I loved it - the only thing I would change was more comfortable shoes and maybe a few more photos.

I several others, including my spouse's siblings who did similar - each had a handful of people, wasn't offended in the slightest even when we couldn't attend or wasn't invited. In fact, SIL married last year and my spouse and I had joked that - as they were engaged, that the lockdown rules was the perfect time for them to do it as they both hate crowds so much -- and they did! I was so happy for them.

We did. Twenty five guests and that was only because ex in-laws insisted on inviting random friends of theirs who we had never met and never saw again! Went for a curry as our sit down meal.
Ex DH wouldn't have tolerated a big wedding although I think with his new gf he may not get the choice lol.

Ours cost around 1800 that included everything and we just paid for stuff each month as we got paid, no point getting into debt for a wedding

Registry office with immediate family (9 guests). We went out for a lovely lunch afterwards and then had a party at the pub in the evening.

I love going to big fancy weddings, but would have hated one for myself, and feel uncomfortable with some of the traditions.

We had a really nice day. In terms of 'repercussions', the older generation of one side of DH's family didn't come to the party as they didn't want to travel the couple of hours from their hometown when they weren't getting to go to the ceremony. We felt a bit sorry for his parents about it, but otherwise that felt like a consequence we were prepared to accept!

We still have noticeably less nice stuff (e.g. crockery) than our siblings who did have 'proper' weddings with wedding lists. Again, that's a price I was happy to pay ;). I'd do it the same way again, and I imagine that it's even easier to go down that route if you have kids already in terms of people's expectations.

I got married at city hall in New York just the two of us. Can take other people too. Was amazing. Need to get a license then wait 24 hours then you can get marrried. Be lovely if it was just you your family.

We had a register office wedding, invited about 30 people. Then we had afternoon tea in our local village hall.
We were lucky that both of them are very pretty, so could do it cheaply and still have nice pictures- I think I paid £50 for the hall!
I had a wedding dress, DH had a suit and waistcoat.
We wanted to spend money on our house, not one day. It suited us well.

Not married in a register office, but did work for the council as a celebrant / registrar and I can tell you that some of my favourite weddings were the small intimate ones at either a small venue or in the registry office itself. If I was to get married again, that would be what I would do.