AIBU to think this wedding idea would work?

[ItsMeImHere]

Basically, DP and I would love to get married but cannot afford anything 'special'.

As he has a stupidly large family and extended circles of friends and close colleagues, to make sure everyone is a part of not so much our big day, we will need a bash of some description.

Looking locally, there are a couple of venues that would be suitable for the 200 people he wants needs to invite. They mostly provide ceremony and meal, disco and buffet with various extras of cakes, seat covers etc. The packages they provide cost upward of £5000 for the most basic. I actually don't think that these are terrible prices, but not ones I am comfortable with paying.

So I have an idea that I think could work, but DP thinks I am being unreasonable to entertain such a silly notion.

Most of the venues, and one I like in particular, do room hire for conferences, day events etc at £250 for 8am-12am. Supposing we did the marriage registration as bog standard at the registry office for £46, just us and a couple of witnesses, then go and decorate the 'conference' room, invite guests to our 'wedding' at 2pm and have my DPs father conduct a ceremony. Photos by friends and family (on smartphones etc) around 3pm, external catering for a meal at 4pm and self cater music and an evening buffet. The private bar is available to be open on the day event price. This should all work out at less than £1000, everyone witnesses our marriage sort of , we actually get married and have a nice day.

The problem is DP thinks it is 'lying' to the venue about the hire, and that they won't allow external catering, all the while we are 'tricking' his friends and family.

Is it really so unreasonable to believe it could be pulled off?

Find a large enough independent pub and go and speak to the owner about a private hire - you could provide the first drink for toasts maybe a buffet or hog roast and then guests could buy their own extra food/drink from the bar. The pub will be able to make money so will prob do you a great deal on the food etc, especially if you can do it on a mon-thurs instead of peak trading days.

ItsMe, tbh, the tone of your post makes it sound like you are both on a different page regarding the wedding. If you don't want (& more importantly can't afford) a massive wedding, your DP needs to trim back his guest list a bit and remember that it isn't just his day, it's yours too. That's not to say they can't all come, but you need to be happy with the venue and cost etc, so if some of them only get to come for the evening bit, so be it.

FWIW, I had a small wedding in a hotel, non traditional (it was 2nd time for H, first for me, so I didn't want a carbon copy wedding and went very 'me' !)

XH and I are now divorced and if I marry my now DP I would really like to have a 'proper' wedding next time. It's (supposed to be!) a once in a lifetime day and you should be happy about everything and feel that it reflects you as a couple. It sounds like at the moment, it's all about your DP and not very much about you. Is there such a thing as a Groomzilla?!

I think this would work better with a village/church hall type venue rather than conference centre. I don't think you're going to manage to get a conference centre to agree to what you have just suggested.

A lovely friend of ours did exactly this in the local village hall however and it was brilliant fun.

I know someone who booked their wedding reception at a hotel as a conference. Once it was all signed off and agreed she fessed up. When they tried to argue she pointed out that she didn't want anything different to what had been agreed and asked them to justify why she should therefore pay more to call what had been agreed a wedding. So they backed down. She does book lots of conferences with them through work though so this may have worked because they didn't want to lose her business. ..

You won't get a meal for 200 people for £1000,as others have said that doesn't cover a macdonalds!

Feed them once
so no meal and then buffet, perhaps a hog roast they tend to be cheaper.

You need to check the venue will allow external caterers, most don't.

Village hall is your best bet.

In reality you need to cut the numbers way back. 200 people also suggests a rather large and therefore lavish affair. There are some great ideas in this thread but your starting point has to be:

-what is your actual budget
, it's unclear from your op

• how many people can you invite on that budget

Homemade is lovely but meagre isnt

I think that trying to do a champagne wedding on a Lambrini budget will always look like the poor relation.
The best thing to do is either do something really 'you' or something really different.
We got married for £1500. Granted we only had around 40 instead of 200.
Our family all live far from us so would have had to pay for accommodation so we found some converted stables (around 12 x 2 bed cottages) which came with a lovely meadow. Everyone paid £50 to stay for the fri and sat nights.
I then made a couple of big pans of pasta for the fri night, men went down the pub and women stayed behind and got drunk. I provided breakfast stuff in all the cottages and we got married in the local registry office which was a lovely old Manor House. We then had a bbq in the meadow with a decorated party gazebo and party games/ limbo etc. my dad manned the bbq and I made all the salads etc.
we bought lots of alcohol but everyone brought loads too so we ended up taking home more than we had brought!
I made cupcakes on a big cake stand instead of wedding cake
Only concession i made was lettin my mum pay for professional flowers - bouquets for me and 2 bridesmaids, head dress for flower girl and button holes for parents and grandparents.
My dress was £100 from coast and dh got a suit from debenhams.

Have a later service (5pm?) and then just put on a buffet in the evening? But even that is likely to cost £5 a head at the very least.

As previously stated a hotel will not allow external caters. Check out alternative venues.

We got married with just parents in the morning (and not in wedding dress) then went to out venue in afternoon had ceremony run by friend (in wedding dress) and did buffet etc. people said it was brill. We told people what we were doing, no one complained.

How about a barn rather than a conference centre? There you'd need external catering anyway.

But yes you could do it within budget

We did something similar for our wedding. I hired a largish private rental property and told them we wanted to use it for a family function for 70 people with external caterers. They were fine with it. I do think you need to be honest with the venue, just don't use the "wedding" word or it triples the price!

Wasn't there a mumsnetter who did a wedding in a local hall. Loads of mumsnetter a chipped in with money saving ideas, it sounded amazing but was all done for very little.

I know it would keep costs down, but if your DP has a huge family (like I do), I think it's really horrible to ask him to cut the guest list...cut friends that not necessarily uber-close off of the list by all means but not family. We had 150 people at our wedding and more than half of that were my family - I would have been livid if DH asked me to choose members of my family to un-invite. At the end of the day, isn't it more important to have all the people you love there to share in your special day and cut back on things like a sit-down meal? Memories are way more important, and last a hell of a lot longer than snazzy food

I think AlternativeTentacles and MrsMcwoodle make great suggestions among many others here.

We got married in a lovely London restaurant and had meal downstairs and then retired to the pub for drinks and no evening do.

It cost my dad/f in law a lot.

If I could go back in time, I wouldn't invite as many people. Some people there I haven't seen since. I wish we'd kept it smaller and more special, spent less and had an evening do. Not that it was lavish by any stretch, it was low key, I just think it could have been smaller and simpler and I wish I hadn't invited my awful cousin who I was pressured to invite and he behaved embarrassingly...

I don't regret our wedding completely but I adore a simple wedding, I really find the hugely conspicuous consumption wedding is increasingly not my taste

Don't Holiday Inn do a budget wedding for £999? Or used to.

Just checked and its from £1999 outer London

19lottie82
Strangely, the 'venue' is a bowls club! They only recently obtained license to conduct ceremonies in the hall which looks like a beautiful, large summer house. The meal we are planning is also a curry menu!

To answer how external catering is to be so cheap, DPs brother and SiL run a very large events catering business that employs two of their other siblings. They have all volunteered the hours in the morning at no cost, as a wedding gift, and we are just covering the food bill.

I took the advice about speaking to the venue and they have actually agreed to hiring the hall for £150 from 2pm until midnight as a wedding reception, as well as allowing external catering. I am meeting with them to discuss any extras such as chair covers as they haven't purchased any yet and wanted input! I was given a bargaining chip as they have asked if I would allow them to take and use photographs for publicity! I can't believe the luck, but need to speak to DP now and whittle his guest list down to 120ish. I only have two guests myself. I feel a little like a guinea pig, but so pleased I asked here as I would never have called otherwise.

Thanks MN!

You have 2 guests and your dp has 198?

ItsMe Fantastic news! Well done! Enjoy the rest of the planning

"cut friends that not necessarily uber-close off of the list by all means but not family."

I would far rather invite friends who I see semi-regularly than Great-Aunt Gladys who I haven't seen since I was five. I'm not sure I agree with the idea that family ALWAYS trumps friends.

Well done OP, good luck!

We took our "official" wedding photos (taken by my DB) on the bowling green and they looked lovely.

I kept an eye out on the Tesco wine site (or was it Asda, I can't remember) and got 12 bottles of red, 12 of white and 6 champagne for about £140 because they had some promotion on. The bowling club let us bring them for the toasts / meal in for a small corkage fee.

I know I've already mentioned this, but if you want a good atmospheric evening do, please don't scrimp on a proper DJ. Some will try and charge you a fortune for a wedding but you should be able to find someone reasonable for circa £150 or less.

I also used ebay for all those "little extras" which we kept realising we needed, like a personalised banner and little activity packs for the kids. Everything is mega cheap and gets delivered to your door.

Heels99
Sadly, yes. I have no family (besides DPs side who all say they are there for me) and have just two friends. He has such a large family though, as he is the youngest of 9 children. The youngest by quite a margin too as he has neices and nephews much older than he is. In just siblings, siblings' children (and in some cases their children) parents, aunts, uncles and immediate cousins, his family total 73!

19lottie82
Thanks for all of your fabulous ideas! With the saving made, I think an actual DJ is in order else DP will likely try to take the job

Wow!
Well it all sounds wonderful, have a great day.
Country baskets are great for decorations