To wonder what people's weddings were like

[meantosay]

One of the current wedding threads just got me wondering? There's a lot of talk about people having weddings they can't afford etc and was just wondering how many of you had small simple affairs.

I had a small church wedding and buffet lunch at our new house for about 40 people.

I'm getting married next Thursday (I know I mentioned this on another thread sorry), it will be just me, DP, my best girl pal and DP's best mate. No parents or anyone else.

It's been quite fun organising it all in secret but the reality is setting in and it would be nice to tell people and get excited.

We are going for drinks and dinner afterwards.

Congratulations Reindeer, have a lovely day! :)

We had 180 guests, BYO food (amazing food was brought by all), horses and cider cart, church, run down stately home, ceilidh, silent disco, stayed in a yurt in a field.

Best day of my life by miles. :)

We hired a hall, cooked all the food the day before (cooked a couple of turkeys to serve cold with three different dressings, loads of hard-boiled eggs, a fish terrine thing, bread, cheese, pate, syllabub and a wedding cake made by my partner's mother), invited 100 people and let them know in advance that there would be some fairly straightforward washing up :)

My frock was a sari that my mother brought back from India years ago, with a top made by a fried of mine. Another friend, first-gen Pakistani-British, bought me a silk hair ornament and braided it in for me. We hired a van to move us all around.

Probably came to about £200-£300.

Registry office for 26 (including us of course). Lunch at a local Chinese restaurant after. Total cost was around £1000 nearly 20 years ago.

My only regret was that we didnt have any video of the speaches. My dad made a lovely speach and he is now long gone.

speech of course (now write it out 100 times)

Hotel do, reception there in evening- watermill, lovely place close to DH's childhood home.

Some bits posh- venue etc; some bits not- dress from john Lewis, borrowed BIL's dad's SAAB and ahd that for wedding.

We liked it and it met our saved budget.

We got married in the Register Office with 28 guests and then on to a hotel for a buffet style meal. I was 5 months pregnant. Had about another 40 in the evening and it was a gorgeous hot day and we all sat outside, the disco was wasted!

I had my dress made for £70, no bridesmaids and we hired the mens suits. It was lovely.

Wedding and reception for around 100 at a well known historical London pub on the Thames.

Wedding dress cost £75, engagement ring £50, got a black cab to venue, friend who is a professional sports photographer did all the photos free for us, friends paid for wedding night at the 4 Seasons.

Pay bar at the venue, so not that expensive. We made savings where we could. Spent a lot on the entertainment, though. Was very worth it. Amazing tunes!

Got married by a lake in a forest.

About fifty guests total, we all strolled back to a little restaurant and had a fab meal together and partied until about 6am.

Very informal. Highlights included an impromtu singsong, a made especially for us, featuring some of our friends and people randomly standing up to sing us something all throughout the meal.

Oh, and the asparagus...

Nice thread.

Ours was around 120 people, under five thousand pounds (my Gosh that is a lot of money I'd like to have that in my pocket), traditional 3pm, drinks, dinner, disco, family stay in the hotel, we fly off in the morning sort of thing.

It was nice. Lots of children. Old people. Quota numbers of rugby tables, work tables, school tables, granny tables, uni tables, random they don't know anyone else tables. Just completely normal boring lovely wedding.

We got married www.lasvegasweddingsatthegrove.com/here in Las Vegas, with 20 guests that flew over from the UK & NZ. (parents, siblings and close friends) Although 4 of those were actually gatecrashers. They were relatives of one of our guests and lived in the US but happened to be on holiday in LV at the time so invited themselves along!!

Then we had a ridiculously huge party back home afterwards as my parents wanted to foot the bill and had to invite anyone vaguely related to them and allow DH family to do the same! But at least it allowed me to wear my dress again.

That was the main reason why we went to LV in the first place as we only wanted a small do and that was the only way we would of got one!

Would do it all again tomorrow (minus the after-party)

Congratulations, Reindeer!

We've just arranged to marry next month to celebrate 25 years of being together. It'll be just us and our 2 DC, who will be the witnesses. Then we're going away for five days the following week. Can't wait!

dh and I in jeans and tshirts, witnesses a couple we grabbed in the carpark, a half bottle of champagne and brownies by the river afterwards, heaven.

We got married on the Frigate Unicorn (v cheap and cool) then had a ceilidh in a village hall. Food was cheese, cold meats, bread and pickles, etc, and went down a storm. It was just brilliant and I'm so glad we did it that way.

Hello hj!

We got married in a registry office and had family and very close friends to a meal followed by evening do in the liberal club.[closed down years ago]

We got married in my home town, then did a tour of the local churches for photos (traditiona). when we returned to the UK we had a bbq in the garden for 25 or so.

Pretty trad for me, quite boring really. Church wedding at our local church (local to where we were living that is, not local to where I grew up) with 130 people, double decker buses transported everyone to the reception venue (central London, parking nightmare hence buses) which was a private members club just off Berkley Square.

Sit down meal - just two courses and the most fabulous gooey chocolate cake as pud, and then lots and lots of drinking and dancing to swing band. My dbil surprised us with a wedding video at midnight - he's a cameraman and we knew he'd been filming, but we didn't know he'd paid a mate of his to sit in a room and edit it!

It wasn't boring for me btw :o Enjoyed every minute and got absolutely shredded on champers!

Wedding in my church, but with service that was very unfamiliar to 99% of the guests and in a foreign language (DH's priest). Sit-down three-course meal but we walked to the restaurant, moved around chatting between courses. Did the flowers ourselves. I didn't make favours but did do everyone's name as a placecard in calligraphy and decoration like a medieval book, because lots of our guests are people I know through studying medieval English, so it was nice. People kept them instead of favours so win/win!

I think it cost around 5k, but my parents paid over 3k for the food, as they hate getting hungry at weddings and wanted to pay for a sit-down three course meal.

It was a mix of traditional (in the case of the service, traditional from the 2nd century BC!) and not very traditional at all (quite feministy and low-budget on most things but the food). Naturally, therefore, we were ideally placed to piss off all the guests!

Btw, do not understand how anyone could be stupid enough to spend 20k + on a wedding unless a huge chunk of that was on a very expensive, and long, honeymoon! Bridal magazines are so full of crap!

It was big and fancy and expensive.

And lovely.

I don't consider myself stupid LittleRedDragon.

We got married in a church, reception at a nice hotel, I had a normalish dress, bought a fair chunk of drink for the reception, hired suits, had pretty expensive flowers, posh cars etc. Adds up.

It was lovely and not pretentious at all.

We got married in our local church. About 50 guests - sit down meal followed by buffet /disco .band in evening for another 60. Beautiful dress.

Not 100% what I wanted but a compromise.

If I was doing it again, I would marry in same church in same dress and just have afternoon tea for everyone. Then we would have hired a hall and band and have a great p* up in the evening-all paid by us of course!

Er ... how does it add up to 20k though?

I had a designer dress; DH had a nice suit. We had lovely flowers. We paid for champagne, wine during the meal, and three courses. All our male guests wore suits and our bridesmaids looked beautiful. We booked the wedding a 2 minute walk from the reception, as the wedding was in a lovely medieval church that my mother used to attend, and the reception was in our favourite restaurant, in Oxford, which is a beautiful city.

It added up to around 5k.

I'm sorry, but I think either you were had, or you got crazy about 'My Special Day'.

I just can't understand the idea that a wedding should cost that much.