Should we cancel our wedding plans - WWYD?

[NameChangeAfterTHAT]

Wedding planned for Sept 2024. We live in a rural town, so there are no local options for a small ceremony and a meal out like you can do in a city. You either have a non-event experience, travel or go all out with a wedding venue.

As we are 40s and 50, first marriage for him, we have decided to go all out and booked a stunning venue, 65 people max. For family reasons, we have decide on a 2 year engagement. We are both quite introverted and have a tiny social circle,
and family, so we have struggled to think of more than 35 people to invite. But we’re happy with that - better small but true friends. Now, due to breaks ups and relocation 7 guests will not attend, we have not even sent the invites, but we already know. Then the remainder may not even make it and we are now thinking to cancel the wedding all together, cut our £3k deposits losses and stop spending another £15k or so. We would still get married on a budget. But I am really sad that it has come to this, but it’s a lot of money for what feels like no point.

Alternatively, we invite people we are not close to or try and try to make new friends, which is hard for us both, but that just sounds stupid. WWYD?

There were 8 of us at my wedding, and we were able to hold that in a private room at a small hotel in our tiny market town. We had the room for the ceremony, then it was set up as a private dining room for our lunch. There will be lots of similar venues with various sized rooms for all sizes of weddings. Posters might even be able to suggest some if you give us your county or area.

Go abroad and get married, have a lovely honeymoon.

see if the original venue will put your deposit towards a party when you get back

Can you not see if you could change the booking to more of an dinner/party, get married in registry office secretly and then have slap up dinner for family/friends, so you lose a bit of money but not all of it.

£18k for 28 people? Take them all abroad for that.

OP you stated 65 people max! That is a limit, not a target.
Speak to your chosen venue about reductions in numbers/costs first, if that really is the place you want.
Otherwise there are some excellent suggestions in this thread.

What sort of place is the venue you have booked? Does it literally only do weddings? If not then surely they could put the £3k deposit towards a lovely dinner/drinks party/stay overnight rather than you lose it altogether.

I absolutely wouldn’t invite non close people to make up the numbers.

I’d find a nice cosy pub and book it there.
Somewhere you could be flexible on numbers right up to the day.
I am sure which will have a lovely day in any case.

Honestly. This.

Or go to a register office and then have an amazing honeymoon with the money you've saved!

I'd cancel and spend the money on making it a more extravagant affair for you and your 20 odd guests. You could go to a registry office in a nearby town and have a wonderful meal/party afterwards - you could use the money to pay for guests travel etc

The place where you have already paid £3k will probably have other options.

Talk to them ASAP as they will probably be able to sell the bigger room to another party.

As others have said, scale back your wedding, have a wonderful honeymoon.

Why not a local registry office then a nice pub?

Go abroad. It's what we did and combined our honeymoon. One of the best decisions we ever made.

If many of your guests are really local and you find a nice intimate venue not too far away then why not hire a coach to take them there and back? Or pay for some to stay over. Make it convenient for them, easy to drink, low expense for everyone!

Also, if you think a DIY event at a village hall or some such is too much work, you can pay someone to do all that for you in terms of decor and catering and it will be a lot less than the fancy place you've currently booked.

That is a huge amount of money for a small, intimate wedding. You could book a London restaurant for much less than that, get everyone to take the train and have a fabulous lunch.
My friend with no family (her parents died when she was a teenager) went abroad, married there and had a wonderful honeymoon. I was sad to not see her get married but I understood why.
Or you could do the registry office in your area, or tiny local church, and then go straight to your honeymoon. Or hire the church hall and have an old fashioned wedding tea afterwards, ask friends to make cakes etc. Weddings really don’t have to be large affairs costing many thousands of pounds. The smallest weddings I have been to have been the most fun and the most beautiful actually. My friend and I went to the flower market early in the morning, bought armfuls of flowers, and decorated the church together, things like that can be really good fun.

Due to the stress and bust ups of people who think they can dictate what you do for your own wedding, we eloped and it was a brilliant decision. I did mourn the fancy wedding we had 80% planned, but at the end of the day, all the wedding photos contain people we care about. Us.

@OhComeOnFFS

can you explain why you think their age is relevant?

@Outliers

why are they a waste of money?

Get married with the people you care for around you. Do it on a budget of that makes sense. Don't worry about the rest.

Or elope to Skye - it is a stunning backdrop for a wedding!

I don't see why you can't do a small intimate wedding within your same venue? Our wedding venue could accommodate up to 90 but had hosted weddings for as few as ten people and they always looked lovely in the brochure thing. You can reallocate the spending on really nice food and drink etc, maybe a longer stay there for you and your partner or treat your close family to accommodation?
If that's not possible and you think the whole thing will make you unhappy, then cancel, and just see it as gaining the £15k you'd have 'wasted' rather than losing the £3k. Sometimes these things happen in life, you live you learn!

Cancel. Elope and have a fab holiday!

Average wedding costs north of £30K and lasts 12hours, as is very much forgotten about in a week.

Its a terrible return on investment and there are much better ways to invest your money.

I got married 2.5years ago.

I have a very difficult family with whom I have very little contact. My husband has an enormous, bustling, perfect and supportive extended family (which only makes my own seem worse by comparison) and which naturally cost a fortune to cater to.

So, we eloped. I wore green (ashamed to be seen!) and we went out for a curry afterwards, in all our finery. The staff threw uncooked rice over us as we left the curry house.

It was superb and I laughed so much that day that my sides ached. We came back and had a garden party with family and friends later on, where we did some humanist vows on the lawn.

Ditch the big white wedding and just do something more chill that feels right for you.

Only on Mumsnet....

If she said there were no local options, then there are no local options. It really isn't that hard to understand 🤔

Spending £18k on a party is absolute madness unless you're rolling in it. The rest is irrelevant.

Because the OP says she lives in a town. I’m surprised there are towns without any options for getting married…!