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Original poster

Did anyone have a really small intimate wedding....

59 replies

allthreerolledintoone · 13/01/2007 12:57

due to family issues i do not want the fuss of a big wedding all i really want is a nice dress maybe a nice location and photo's to show for it. As mentioned in a previous thread said and i arent talking to his parents etc so i just want something small but thats going to be rmantice and memerable i dont want to regret having the big wedding.I want to get married easter too so how can i do it cheaply.

OP posts:
Original poster
allthreerolledintoone · 13/01/2007 13:00

Sorry ds is distracting me i meant i want something small and nice and not to regret not having the big wedding. I just feel i will end up inviting people who i know but im not that close to or who ive not seen for ages etc.Not to mention dh's parents prob wont come.

OP posts:
buktus · 13/01/2007 13:03

we had 8 people at our wedding and it was so lovely, th people we care about the most sharing our special day, no stress at all just as well as i was 8 months pg, it was really nice and to top it all off it was snowing and xmas and it all looked romantic, it didnt cost much either

Furball · 13/01/2007 13:16

we only had 30 - close family and friends. civil wedding in a hotel with a reception after and no evening do.

kid · 13/01/2007 13:23

My wedding was just myself and DH!
We went abroad to get married by ourselves and had a party when we got home for friends and family. We didn't have to have the party but we wanted to.

Not necessarily the cheapest way to do it, but we did get a great holiday/wedding/honeymoon all in one.

marymillington · 13/01/2007 13:33

not small enough. we had about 40 people in the end because of dh's ridiculous gregariousness. it was lovely - ceremony at town hall and lunch at nice restaurant, but i would have been happy with about half that number and wanted to do a lunch party at our house. i think home-made weddings re the nicest if you have the energy to do that or could you and a few close friends go off to somewhere beautiful like skye and stay somewhere lovely? or find a gorgeous old coaching inn in the countryside and go there with a few people, do the deed, eat and drink well and stay over?

Pages · 13/01/2007 13:33

We did, very small, 20 people and it was great. Close family and two freinds, everyone paid for their own evening meal, no stress. Organised in 2 months and cost next to nothing. Everyone in the family put their own little touch in. It was a very special, romantic and memorable day.

madamez · 13/01/2007 14:34

WHile I'm not married and never will be, weddings are one of my specialities (am training to become a BHA celebrant this year) and I've been to a few nice, small ones. SOme friends of mine got married with just both sets of parents and 4 friends. The parents stood everyone lunch in a hotel beforehand, which was good of them, and the friends and witnesses, having waved the couple off in a taxi, went to the pub and had a good time bitching (kindly) about them - well I and the other witness were in fact the couple's most recent ex partners, which amused everyone... You only, legally need yourself, the intended spouse and 2 witnesses to go and do it in a registry office if you want to be really minimalist. If cost is an issue, you could throw the sort of party that invites everyone to bring a bottle/something eatable instead of buying you a toaster or nasty ornament...

Pinkchampagne · 13/01/2007 14:42

I didn't want a big wedding with lots of fuss, so we decided to get married in Florida with just close family, H's friend, his wife & a close friend of mine, who made a special effort to get out there to join us.
It was perfect for us, as we didn't want a huge fuss.
We all had a reception around the pool after, which was great!

Anchovy · 13/01/2007 14:50

We had 16 at our wedding including ourselves - just immediate family. Short ceremony at Catholic church (who surprised me by doing short, meaningful and not too proseletysing or intimidating service for non catholics or non-practising ones), off to a local hotel for champagne on the terrace followed by lunch in a private room with everyone sitting round one big table, (vey nice food and wine - fraction of the cost of rubber chicken for 100+), few short speeches between courses, all done and dusted by 4pm!

When I look back on it (12 years ago) I feel very convinced that we did absolutely the right thing for us.

peegeeweegee · 13/01/2007 14:54

Dh and I got married in Jersey with only my sister and our closest friend with us. It was lovely, relaxed and very intimate.

We then had a garden party at home, with a gazebo, bbq etc - really nice!

mythumbelinas · 13/01/2007 14:56

me and dh just had a registry with about 20 family and friends, then back to my parents for informal drinks and food, prepared my my dad who was a chef. Took informal pics all day.
My mum didn't attend as she had a plumber scheduled to come round and wanted to be there for him

Pinotmum · 13/01/2007 14:57

We had 16 at ours. Registry office and garden party at my parents house. We married 6.5 yrs ago and I don't regret doing it that way at all.

sunnywong · 13/01/2007 14:57

we did very small, 14 people, registry office, got my dress for 40 bucks, bouquet from the supermarket, dh worked in the morning and wedding breakfast in an Italian cafe in Fremantle. Non of my family there, huzzah. Missed my dad thought

13 years ago next month [smile[

Original poster
allthreerolledintoone · 13/01/2007 15:06

Hmm im loving the going away with a few close family and friends and ataying over any suggestions? Lake district or somewhere would be nice wouldnt it?

OP posts:
marymillington · 13/01/2007 15:17

we thought about here but couldn't make it work for us. Fabulous food and wonderful atmosphere and views. But they have done it up a bit recently and its not quite as lovely as it used to be.

marymillington · 13/01/2007 15:20

sorry meant to say, not lake district but north west.....where are you?

ProfYaffle · 13/01/2007 18:17

Dh and I had about 20 I think, just immediate family and one friend each as witnesses. Registry office ceremony followed by a posh meal. It was lovely, very 'us'. Because it was so small we felt free to do everything our way and weren't under pressure to live up to the venue, eg I wore a black dress and we walked up the aisle to some very raucous music.

jampots · 13/01/2007 18:18

we had 40 at our wedding which were mostly friends - didnt invite all the "extras" that people seem to. It was a lovely do very informal and relaxed

iota · 13/01/2007 18:19

w did the same as kid and it was fab

WideWebWitch · 13/01/2007 18:20

Yes, I did, second time round. It was in a reg office and we invited

dh's mum and dad
dh's brother and his dd
my mum and her adopted dd
my sister and her dh, dd and ds
my other sister and her dp
my step sister, her dh and 3 dds
1 friend, her dh and ds and dd
another friend, her 2 dds and a ds

It was fantastic. One of the friends is a photographer so did all the photos. I don't regret it at all.

WideWebWitch · 13/01/2007 18:21

So 12 adults and about the same no of children (2 were tiny babies)

MrsBadger · 13/01/2007 18:25

SIL and BIL had 10 guests, and a very simple registry office ceremony followed by dinner - they told the restaurant it was a 'family celebration' so they didn't start getting out the frilly napkins or pushing Function Menus and it was lovely.
To be fair the registry office wasn't much to look at but we went out afterwards and took photos in the gardens of Chester Cathedral, and in arches of old buildings in the city, which made for lovely pictures.

The other successfully small wedding I've been to was about 20 people in a gorgeous period registry office, with photos in the gardens, a glass of champagne each and the couple heading straight for their honeymoon -no hanging around, no awkward small talk and most economically of all, no meal to pay for .

Whatever you do it will be romantic and memorable because it's a wedding.

NB if you want to do it at Easter you need to get a wriggle on as registrars and venues get booked up ages in advance. Having on a weekday will help though.

Heathcliffscathy · 13/01/2007 18:27

we had 40 including ten family each and it was wonderful. just perfect. only people we wanted there. all the usual stuff people say about it going in a blur and not getting to talk to anyone didn't apply, we really enjoyed our friends and family and the day was really special.

tribpot · 13/01/2007 18:35

We had a small wedding in the sense of we had about 40 guests but at least 30 of those were my immediate family and very close friends . I think I may have offended some very good friends who invited me to their weddings, but we wanted it to be low key (not least because dh was ill and wheelchair-bound at the time).

Like MrsBadger's SIL and BIL, we had a simple registry office caper followed by dinner in a local restaurant, under the heading of 'family party'. In fact the Christmas menu was 20% off so I told everyone they had to order from this (despite this being entirely untrue!).

We did have a champagne reception in the local hotel, but that was partly because the latest you can get married is 3 (at the registry office) and so we needed an event to fill in the time til evening because we didn't want a separate evening do or anything.

For photos we had the Abbey Gardens in Bury St Edmunds, where random passersby were forced to take our photo (God knows what they made of that).

Whatever day you end up having, hope you enjoy it!

GhostOfMumsnet · 13/01/2007 18:40

We had 25 members of the family at our wedding. We had a dinner but no reception. The hotel we were at had a lovely lounge and after dinner everyone went there and had a drink and a chat. It was so relaxed and informal many people told us that it was the most comfortable wedding they had been at.