Would you do this, wedding related - garden or not!

[Besidemyselfwithworry]

I’ll keep this brief!
Partner and I have been together 20 years in 2028, and we are celebrating by getting married.
We’ve been to look round some different venues and we want a relaxed/ casual affair - nothing to formal but we want it to be nice
We are thinking of about 50-60 guests and we aren’t bothered for a “night do” as such and we have thought of doing like a bbq style lunch and garden games type of thing.

Costs have varied from venue to venue but last night my friend said “why don’t you just spend the money having your garden landscaped and have people at home with some caterers”

we have a very big garden so could do this and have space for posh portaloos etc… we could have a marque if it rained

has anyone done this?

pro’s and con’s and ideas welcome please 🙏

We’re doing this next year. Really looking forward to it and it’s nice having exactly what we want rather than the limited choices at most venues. The only thing I would say is that it is NOT a particularly cheap option in itself!

We’re marrying at the parish church and then walking back home for the reception.

Your friend sounds great!

and the plan sounds great.

Marriage is about promising to be together forever through thick and thin. I think you’ve lived up to that promise already. So this is a celebration of that promise and a commitment to continue it.

Landscaping your garden and having friends and family share your home to celebrate is a marvellous idea .

Ive been to about 30 weddings in my lifetime (very large family!) and my favourite 3 were my 2 cousin’s - who both had receptions in a field with garden games, ice cream van, marquee and lots of outdoor space.

Then my friend who married in church and had her reception in her ordinarily sized garden. It was marvellous. About 20 of us, hog roast, music and chatting, wine, beer and soft drinks all provided, huge buffet.
Sat around on garden chairs enjoying company of others it’s one of the weddings I remember the most.

Nope. How will you relax if it's your home

They might be two brides or two grooms. There's nothing in the OP to indicate that they're a heterosexual couple so why assume?

We've had a wedding in the family garden, and I've also been to 2 others; in all three instances, they were brilliant, and each had around 100 guests in a marquee. We have also done smaller events up to 30 guests for birthdays where we used a large gazebo (with sides) or the conservatory/downstairs areas and didn't bother with extra/outdoor toilets.

From experience of the one wedding we hosted, don't underestimate the work involved. We had the space and had a lawn area created specifically for the marquee, and it was a sibling that was getting married, organising the logistics, suppliers and making sure everything was ready took a considerable amount of time. This was done mainly by our parents, not the bride and groom, who mainly concentrated on themselves and enjoying the build-up and day.

The clear-up was also quite a lot, again done by my parents and the other siblings as the newlyweds had left for their honeymoon. It took the whole of Sunday.

Top tip: if you are doing the drinks/bar yourself, get a couple of experienced people to run it for you. We 'hired' a couple of our friends to do it (we were not getting married, so they wouldn't have been invited).

Cost: We had our reception at a local hotel, and whilst the food and drink bill was more, the overall costs of hosting the reception, once you had taken everything into account, were about the same.

The garden wedding was lovely and very much my siblings' vibe, but I didn't want the added pressure or to ask my parents to host again.

Is nobody in the house really realistic?

No elderly relatives that won’t want/be able to use the portaloos? No demanding great aunt that will want a “proper comfy seat” at some point of the day? Nobody who’ll want inside to change?

Have you got the space to create a seating area as well as the tables and chairs area?

If you’re planning wedding ceremony and meal/afters in the outdoor space where will people go while the changeover happens? (That’s the bit that caught us out after FIL’s wake - changing the tables from formal meal to more relaxed left everyone wandering in the house for 30+ minutes)

I’ve been to a lot of weddings in my lifetime but definitely one of the best was my in-laws wedding. They had a unique garden but their reception worked perfectly.

Outside caterers did buffet type meal where we had plenty of food that went on all afternoon.

It was so relaxed and chilled. There was no official finishing time, but we all sat around into a very late evening, just enjoying good company.

Immediate family all came back the next day for a relaxed lunch and to tidy the garden up.

My sister and i both did similar. One in a family farm shed, one in a family members garden! Both were great.

Things to consider: toilets, parking, what happens if it rains (both where people sit and also how to stop grass becoming mud, e.g. on the way to the loos), where the caterers will have to prepare food for serving.

We've just done this for DD. We had to also hire a catering tent and the caterers charged us for hire of ovens, fridge trailers etc. We hired freezers for ice too and we hired lots of glass recycling bins so it was easy and quick to clear up.
We also employed an on-the-day coordinator ( a wedding planner who just helped out around the time of the wedding and not all the other stuff) - she was worth her weight in gold because it took the pressure off us!
We've done the sums and it cost the same pp as a wedding in a very smart venue, so definitely no cost saving - but it was lovely having at home and we wouldn't change it

I know someone who did this, I was part of her wedding party.

Something not to overlook - wedding venues have a lot of staff, your home won’t. Consider employing ‘staff’ and I don’t mean catering staff I mean people to deal with issues that arise such as blocked toilets, guest vomiting in flower bed, guest looking for a bedroom for a quicky, guest stung by wasp, guest feeling unwell, guest falling asleep in an inconvenient place, guest has lost their bag etc If there aren’t sufficient people to deal with these guests then that falls on you and your wedding party. Do you want that? I list these examples because they fell on me as MOH. I had a shit day. 60 people is a lot of people and guests dressed in their finery can be surprisingly precious and needy.

Accept that every area of your house will be taken over. Book a night at a nice hotel rather than staying in your home so that you can leave when you are done. It will be an exhausting day.

Something else to note; young plants have weak stalks. Protect your new flower beds. It’s surprising who will treat in a flower bed for whatever reason and cause terminal damage to young plants.

You're hosting a group of family and friends. I think it would be a bit odd and unwelcoming to lock everyone out of the house. I don't think I have ever come across that in a family garden party. It would also probably be easier and cheaper to have the caterers use your kitchen than not.

We’re definitely allowing people into the house, there will be older people who need a soft chair and also we need every scrap of space! We are having a double portaloo on the front driveway but the house loos will definitely be needed.

We’re hiring a mobile bar trailer too. We’re employing staff to circulate drinks and (lavish amounts of) canapes as we don’t have enough space for a sit down meal, though there will be seating areas and scattered chairs under the marquee. We’ve got permission to park in the field opposite the house but the school sounds a great option. We’re going to put a staff break tent up in the field as well.

I agree 100% about the day-of coordinator - she’s already been useful and I just feel reassured I won’t be the first port of call for queries.

We had people in the house, no damage and no major problems, and it felt like the wedding was at home which DD wanted. It was stressful before with all the tidying, cleaning and touching up paintwork- but not too bad afterwards.

Yes, I was a bridesmaid for a DIY wedding. She hired as many staff for her 200 person wedding as I hired for my 60 person wedding, and I ended up running event logistics, prepping Pimms and laying tables all day.

As someone who runs events professionally, I knew that extra staff were worth their weight in gold - more than any decoration or bauble or table favour.

And having done a DIY wedding, my best piece of advice is to start with "party" and build up from there. Don't twist yourself in knots trying to make a standard wedding with all the wedding trimmings - you don't want to be organising things that you don't even really want.

My friend just did this for her daughter. They didn’t landscape the garden but I spoke to her a couple weeks out and I think she was slightly regretting the decision. Her first marquee company went bust, she needed not only portaloos but a generator for more power, coordinating everything was a logistical nightmare - haybales and throws for people to sit on, parking issues, and not least constant monitoring of the weather forecast!
She could have hired a wedding planner which probably would have been money well spent as it would have relieved her of a lot of stress (her DD has a high powered job and couldn’t take much time off to help, plus this was a couple hours outside London where she lives). It went off well but I’m thinking next kid they’ll hire a hall with all the services to hand!