Organising a very small wedding quickly - any tips?

[Saltedcaramel2014]

Hi
DP and I have been engaged for 18 months and now have DS (1 year). Due to a close family member being very ill we've decided we'd like to tie the knot soon (this summer/autumn) so she's still well enough to attend. We would like a small no-frills ceremony (registry office would be fine, though open to something nicer too!) followed by a really nice family dinner somewhere special. It would be 8 adult guests, 3 kids - near or in York. We are both happy to downscale the wedding like this but want the day to be fun too.

I have no idea where to start, even finding venues etc. Can anyone help?

Thank you!

Also hughfearnley I'm all over the idea of a pork pie wedding cake

I arranged my wedding in 1981 within 7 weeks for £315

Now, a friend gave me a tip..... don't trust anyone other than a professional photographer to capture the pictures of your day!

So, one of the greatest expenses from our £315 was a photographer who took 24 photos and allowed us to have an album of 12. (Don't forget, we were all working with 35mm film in those days!) He came to our Church service, then to the civil ceremony and finally to our small reception to photograph us cutting our cake.

My friend was right.... we can't have that day again. It was captured perfectly for us.

Depending on willing amateurs doesn't give you the attention to detail you get from a professional photographer. (They have a bossy gene that gets everyone standing in the right place and looking at the camera at the same time - with humour and laughter in everyone's eyes)

We arranged it all in Feb half term for Easter hols - weekday. I had a dress from Debenhams, DD from BHS, DH wore his suit and DS a little suit from Monsoon.

We had a photographer and 4 guests. After the event we had afternoon tea.

got married in Jan with 8 weeks notice.
first thing decide where you want to get married and give notice... quick. York has lovely registry office my friend got married there.
i wanted to save money so asked for the very very basic ceremony the legal requirements and booked in the morning... cost us £50 (£75 to give notice) on they day they asked if we wanted to upgrade to a slightly longer ceremony which we did.
we did a complete non fuss wedding with just our dd and both sets of mum's and grans our must important people. then after we went for a nice meal out and then me and hd had night in a boutique hotel. was lovely not to stress about the big day.
we had a party in March to celebrate (we have family in the forces and wanted them to be back). and we've just had our honeymoon in Disneyland. so we did it bit by bit. i honestly dont know how people cope with big weddings 100-200 people that's just crazy waste of money. love dosnt equal money.

got married in Jan with 8 weeks notice.
first thing decide where you want to get married and give notice... quick. York has lovely registry office my friend got married there.
i wanted to save money so asked for the very very basic ceremony the legal requirements and booked in the morning... cost us £50 (£75 to give notice) on they day they asked if we wanted to upgrade to a slightly longer ceremony which we did.
we did a complete non fuss wedding with just our dd and both sets of mum's and grans our must important people. then after we went for a nice meal out and then me and hd had night in a boutique hotel. was lovely not to stress about the big day.
we had a party in March to celebrate (we have family in the forces and wanted them to be back). and we've just had our honeymoon in Disneyland. so we did it bit by bit. i honestly dont know how people cope with big weddings 100-200 people that's just crazy waste of money. love dosnt equal money.

Thanks for the advice. missmylinford I like the sound of doing it bit by bit, and not sure how anyone with a little one does it any other way really! I've been to some gorgeous big weddings but I feel much more relaxed about the plan we've settled on. We've made loads of progress planning today. I'm having a bit of an I love mumsnet moment. gets coat

Do we get to know what progress you've made?

Five days on and we have an August wedding booked! It's going to be here: www.grayscourtyork.com/weddings/wedding-gallery/
Saw it from the city walls last summer and could picture us there, was so happy they had slots left. My brother and family are flying in from Oz which is the ultimate icing on cake. Thanks for all the advice!

Wow stunning venue. Have a fantastic day. Good luck with everything.

Best of luck Salted. Can I just add that we didn't want a video made of our day, but we let a friend do a recording (he had just lost his wife and wanted a job to do so that he wouldn't be able to mope.) However, we have loved that DVD, not least because one of our close relatives died shortly afterwards and it is lovely to see him there enjoying the day with us. It is lovely to be able to watch the ceremony again, and to see some of the bits we missed - just folks talking and enjoying themselves, whilst we had our photo taken.

HTH

What a gorgeous venue! It's going to be a lovely wedding.

Thank you! That's a good idea on the video, longtall...