To think a 'cheap' wedding is just fine?

[Noseyvalentine]

First of all, apologies, this board seems full of wedding woe at the moment. Dp and I recently got engaged and have been looking at options for our wedding. I don't particuarly want a long engagement as we have other things we've been saving for, namely a deposit for a house, and I think the longer we put off a wedding the longer it will be before we can get a house as it will eat up those funds. We both have a very similar attitude towards money, we don't have a lot of it by any means as only dp works and we have three dc, but we're very good at living within our means and actively love a good charity shop! Ive looked into nearby venues and the cost is actually unbelievable, and in most cases doesn't include catering which can be up to £30 a head.
I'm more than happy to get a second hand dress, as really, I'll be in in a few hours maximum. But I seem to be hit with absolute disbelief when I mention to friends the corners I can cut. Favours for a start. I don't understand the obsession with buying each guest a piece of tat that they'll just throw away. Similarly, I'm a good baker and have every intention of baking my own cake. This was met with actual gasps of horror by my friend. My ideal day would honestly to get married at the church then bring everyone back here for a picnic. The problems with that being relying on the weather being ok, and also wether the garden is big enough. My house is a pretty modest size and not that pretty. My suggestion of people bringing a dish to share in lieu of a wedding present has also been deemed rude. I feel a bit stuck and deflated. As it is, we're looking at spending £6000 at least to hire and cater for a modest amount of people, less than 60, about a third of that number being children.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Am I being wildly cheap, and would you look down on my wedding? I think with some decorations my garden could look lovely, and yes I'd have to clean up afterwards but so what? It would save us thousands and we could even maybe afford a few days away afterwards too. Anyone had a cheap wedding and regretted it? Or an expensive one and still regretted it??

My brother's wedding cost about *£6000 & it was lovely.

Late afternoon ceremony followed by just one reception for everyone.
Curry buffet at a wedding Hall for 140 people cöst £15 per Head
M&s wedding Cake £180
Friend took photos l & another friend lent his Mercedes as the wedding car.

A 6k budget should get you a very good mid week deal at a hotel. Just have a late pm ceremony and one reception in the evening to keep costs down.

Join Costco or a wholesalers and buy big catering packs of buffet food and drink from there. Much cheaper than the supermarket.

I know someone who got a lovely dress from here and the prices are reasonable

We had a church wedding with reception in the adjacent hall. Bought an off the peg wedding dress from John Lewis.

Buffet provided by a friend's mum who did this as a hobby/business. She made the cake as a wedding present. The car was a vintage car owned by a friend of a friend who also did this as a present. The bar was run by the barman from a local servicemen's club DFIL attended - at cost.

We did have a professional photographer and lot of people took their own pics and gave us copies (pre digital). We also had a disco in the evening provided by the son of a friend of my parents (which we paid for).

IIRC the most expensive thing was the buffet.

We had a wonderful day and lots of people commented on how lovely it was.

Personally, I wouldn't want to bring food. For a more recent family occasion we asked the local sandwich shop to provide a buffet from a selection of items. This worked well.

The most important thing is that you are marrying the man you love and what other people say says more about them than about you.

(My comment about food says that I don't like cooking).

When I was still working I was an event planner, mainly corporate and charity events so I've worked with a lot of different budgets. I think it's really important that your wedding is in a price range that you are comfortable with. I got married for the 2nd time a few years ago and we did it on a small budget.
Rather than thinking of this as a 'cheap' wedding I would think of this as an intimate, homespun, and relaxed wedding. The event is just as much about the guests as it is about the bride and groom. You want to make sure that the guests are well-fed and have a great time, so the majority of your budget should go towards food and drink.
You can get your dress from wherever you want to and second hand vintage is absolutely fine! I agree that wedding favors are optional and to be honest a bit tacky and a waste of money.
However, I would NOT ask guests to bring a dish as you are essentially asking them to cater your wedding. You might end up literally getting 'pot-luck' random dishes that don't get refrigerated on time or heated up the right way. Then you have someone promise to bring a trifle but because their son got sick the night before they bring some sausage rolls from Iceland instead. Having the guests bring food certainly won't work for 60 guests. I have been to several events where I had to bring a dish and it was a huge pain.
If you decide to do the food yourself focus on finding a venue first, this will help you figure out how much you can spend on food. If you decide to have it outdoors would it be feasible to rent a tent incase of bad weather?
Even though I really don't recommend asking people to bring food you could always pick out a reasonably priced wine at a local shop and ask each guest to bring a bottle of that instead of gifts.

As well as church halls you could also look for Scout/Guide huts which you might be able to hire. They are generally very cheap and if you were prepared to spruce it up a bit it might be an option?

We had a midweek wedding. DH is a teacher so it was half term and his teacher friends could come.

We married in a chapel then used a local hotel for lunch. They did a £5 lunch and extended this offer by adding canapes, starter, dessert and a big cheese board for £10/head. They charged a nominal corkage for champagne but supplied their house wine at £5/ bottle, a promotion they had on to get people in. With our room over night, the DC's room and my parents room it was under £1000 all in. We decorated with orchids wrapped in muslin (£4.50 each Ikea) and brought M and S iced cakes which we also decorated with orchids in those special insert things you can get at cake shops for a few pounds.

My dress was a wedding one from the Monsoon outlet and cost £30. I sold it on ebay a year later for the same.

A garden wedding sounds lovely. Check out second hand marquees on ebay. If you watch for a while some go at very low prices and you could no doubt sell on for more if you use some fab photos from everyone enjoying themselves at the wedding.

DS1 is also Autistic and I was worried with how he'd cope. Traditional noisy wedding disco type things were a definite no no. We made him an usher and as he knew most of the guests he stood with my dad and handed out home printed orders of service that he helped to make. He was very serious in the chapel and sat with my parents in the middle front. He came to the dress rehearsal the night before and so knew what would happen and practiced giving out orders of service. Him being a part of things was very important in my enjoyment of the day.

I think a bring a dish sounds lovely but I tend to like a little more info. I'd rather be led a little more or asked to indicate pie/ savoury dish/ bread/ crisps/ drink/ alcohol etc. so that things aren't too duplicated/ over catered.

Its your wedding and must be what you want. The only regret I hear from people about their weddings is being too directed by others in what they should be doing.

Congratulations and have a lovely day.

I think a relaxed picnic style wedding would be lovely. My friends had one in their garden. They didn't ask everyone to bring a dish (which could result in a mishmash or things needing heated up at different times) instead they had a hog roast (~£500).
They bought & decorated a couple of marquee tents (and sold them afterwards) and got straw bales for everyone to sit on.

They did provide all wine & beer - the garden shed was the bar!
It rained a bit but it didn't matter. It was great fun. And not a favour in sight :)

You are being extremely sensible.

If your house isn't big enough why not hire a church or community hall which can be done very cheaply?

Everyone bringing a dish is a lovely idea but might be a bit hard to coordinate. Do you have a helpful relative who could do the catering? (Of course pay for the costs). If not then caterers can be very cheap when they aren't part of wedding packages.

Nowt wrong with a second hand dress! Like you said it will only have been worn for a few hours.

Good luck!

of course dont make yourself broke for others

I agree that an outdoors wedding reception in the UK is a recipe for disaster, can you look at marquee hire? That might not be too much. I've been to 2 lower budget weddings where part of the plans did involve us being outside for a while, and in both cases it pissed it down. I would always assume in the UK you'll need shelter.

Church halls worth looking at, our local one is £50 to hire for the afternoon. Alternatively, look at sports clubs out of season, so cricket clubs are often very nice and cheap to hire and available out of season, or in season if htey are playing away matches. Also rugby clubs, although the club houses can vary greatly! Golf clubs are usually more expensive and only hirable if you know a member, but worth asking aorund extended family if anyone is a member (it might be to get discounts they have to officially hire it and you give them the money).

Private schools often are available to hire in the school holidays, and many are beautiful older buildings with lovely gardens.

I wouldn't do the cake myself, it's a high 'stress' thing to do, and actually compared to buying 2-3 teirs of the plain sponge or fruit cakes from M&S, will cost you about the same in ingredients. I'd do an M&S order, decorate yourself, or just add flowers.

You can do an M&S or Waitrose 'party catering' order to be delivered in the morning, so nice and straight forward.

Be realistic about how much you can do yourself, how much time you will have. you don't want to be faffing about with sugarpaste at 2am the night before trying to finish off the cake, or making 100 sarnies on the morning of the wedding...

My brother recently got married - registry office, then they hired a social club for the afternoon - it was around £70 for the afternoon. They bought food (m & s, Costco type stuff) and catered themselves, we all helped. Someone provided 6 bottles of sparkling wine and they had a wedding cake from M& S, otherwise there was a bar (cheap). One of my brother's grown up son's did the music. It was great, and very cheap. It is definitely possible!

I would definitely go for a hog roast option for food though, we've been to two 40th parties where they had one and it easily fed over 100 for around £500, and no hassle. They even provide the salad/bread. You would just need to provide veggie option and puddings - maybe ask a couple of friends if they'd mind helping here?

My sister in law made her own wedding cake for her low key wedding (restaurant meal after registry office) but I think I'd just buy from M&s and add flowers myself.

Favours are a bag of shite (ha ha), I didn't bother.

I would sit down with your DP and write a list of everything you absolutely definitively want to have at your wedding and exclude everything else. Our list was: family and friends, nice dress, good suit, great meal. And that's all we did. No music, no dancing, no fancy cars. It was a lovely wedding. (Just beware of teenagers- my two nephews needed 6 and a half dinners between them).

Home made cake is a wonderful idea. If my older sister had been able to fly over in time, she would have made mine. As others have said though, do make sure you can manage it along with everything else and delegate to someone at the last minute if necessary.

We didn't have a cake - we thought about every single thing and decided whether we actually wanted it or not. 'Do we care enough about the cake to spend money on it - no - well it's off the list then'. Repeat for all items = a small bill and the wedding you actually want, not the one other people think you should have.

The things that make a wedding enjoyable for guests aren't actually related to costs - I'd prefer a church hall next to the church and bring a dish rather than having to shlep 45 mins away to a fancy castle after the service, for example

It doesn't really matter why you do but have a wet weather plan. Is your house big enough?

Depending on what sort of dress you're after you can go high street, many shops now have bridal ranges such as bhs, Coast and monsoon. Or bridal shops have end of season sales or you can buy the samples for a lot less. Or look on pre-loved for second hand, or think about hiring.

Our wedding cake cost £150 and was made for us, it was exactly what we wanted. You certainly don't have to spend £3-400! Or make it yourself if you make nice cakes!

I know you think favours are a waste of time and expensive but I grew herbs and gave them. Some of them still exist in people's gardens! Cheap to do.

For got to say, weddings are as cheap or as expensive as you want them to be. There is nothing wrong with either if you can afford it.

OP I love the sound of your wedding. So much more interesting and warm than a dreary hotel reception with the same old starters and mains and hours hanging round for photos.
Best wedding I ever went to was in a small church hall. Friends and family chipped in with catering then plates and tables were cleared and there was dancing with babies crawling all over the floor. it was joyous.
get your friends into the spirit of it. Just say, it's not posh. It's a picnic. We don't want presents, we want you to bring food to share. It's YOUR day. No one gives a stuff about party favours: four sugared almonds in a gauze bag. Or if they do, really they shouldn't.

I didn't have a bouquet. I ran down to the local florist in the morning on the day and bought some flowers that meant something to DH and me, then tied them in some left over silk from my dress. It's things like that you remember fondly afterwards - running down to buy your own flowers on the day. Not the formal stuff that brings on migraines.

I didn't have a cheap wedding, but I did dispense with most of the traditional frills. I found that most people had something they felt I was rash to go without, and were prepared to express a view. For some it was the lack of cake, some felt there should have been photographs, I think my mother felt there ought to have been a car. No one bleated on about favours though!

I think it sounds a great idea myself. You could always borrow/hire a gazeebo. Halls are cheap to hire though and you have the benefit of more than one loo if you've got a lot of people coming.

It sounds nice except the pot luck buffet.

I'd be rather mortified if my wedding ended up looking like an Iceland ad! It depends on the people you know, though. If you can trust them to cook well or shop at m&s then it's a fine idea!

"My ideal day would honestly to get married at the church then bring everyone back here for a picnic. The problems with that being relying on the weather being ok, and also wether the garden is big enough. My house is a pretty modest size and not that pretty."

Hello nosey. We had a simple wedding day and it was relaxing and lovely. After a meal in the church hall we and our guests squeezed in to our rather scruffy 2 bed flat, it was great fun

"My suggestion of people bringing a dish to share in lieu of a wedding present has also been deemed rude."

How about having a 'bring a dish' but just let them bring a present anyway?

My wedding cost £1800 for everything.
My dress was £99 from EBay for a dress from a wedding shop that was closing, should have been £800. So try EBay you never know.
We married in a registry office on a Friday, then we hired a function room at a cricket club (£30!). As our caterer pulled out a week before the wedding we had subways do the catering, so they did big platters of sandwiches, crisps, and we had 4 pudding options that we got from Iceland.
Then we had a live band and a caterer did the buffet for the evening do.
My cake was from Tesco with a nice ornament on top and some nice ribbon around each tier, cost about £50 in total.
The best man had a gorgeous Audi which he put ribbons on and we had it as our wedding car.
No photographer, but I did go to the local paper as they do wedding announcements and they sent a photographer so I do have one professional shot. So that might be worth considering.
Flowers were wooden roses as I wanted to keep them forever, but they fell apart a few months later which was a shame.
We did buy proper plates and bowls from Ikea for the subway buffet, and silver coloured plastic cutlery, but that was my luxury item.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the day, and most importantly we enjoyed it (well except my dad's behaviour but that's a thread in itself).
Best advice I can give is call in favours and see if friends can help in anyway. We got the club cheap as FIL was a member, friends and family set up the venue in the morning, use of the Audi etc.
Check out money saving expert as they have a guide to saving money on weddings by Martin, plus the wedding forum might help.