small intimate wedding

[raspberrytipple]

Hello,

Just a bit of help if possible. DP and I have been engaged for 10 years and I have pushed over chrimbo for us to set a date. I have now got permission to book a date for late summer of 2011!!! Very excited!

We only want a very small intimate wedding so will go for Registry office on friday or saturday morning followed by afternoon tea at my folks house. We are going to keep it very low key and very quiet but I need advice, I dont actually now know what to do? Help!!!!

What do I need/should I book? We aren't going to be doing best men/bridesmaids etc or hen/stag so no worries there but I'm thinking I need at the very least:

Dress for me/suit for DP

Catering - I'm thinking of using somewhere like M&S party spreads as there will only be 70 max for afternoon tea.

Drink - mate has a discount card for a wholesalers as they are caters so cheap booze sorted!

Cake - DP mum makes so easy

What about a wedding car? The place we will get married fronts out on to a main street in the town and I dont want to have to run into a taxi in my dress? Any ideas how much they would cost?

Any advice/hints/tips to give from those who have had very small weddings? There would be max 40 people at the ceremony of immediate/close family and 5 of our very best friends. I am a little worried about politics and there are some friends I would love to be there but once you invite one person you have to invite others and it just explodes...... how have other people dealt with it?

Thank you in advance!!!! :)

I had a very small wedding. I invited immediate family only to the ceremony and friends to the party. I explained this to everyone, even friends who were coming from Spain because once you invite one you start having problems. Everyone was very understanding.
We had a huge party.
We did a buffet and had it in our back garden, hired tables and chairs. It was an absolutely fantastic party. We went to France and bought all the booze duty free.

Congratulations, i'm sure it will be lovely.

ha ha ha at 40+ at ceremony and 70+ at tea being classed as a small wedding nowadays.

oh god really libra ? I suppose it is big ish - perhaps that's why DP has already called me bridzilla!!!

It's literally only close family and our best friends to the ceremony then additional guests to tea in the afternoon. Money is a big factor i.e. we don't have much at all to spend on one day and feeding other people (about £2k)!!!! and the fact that we are both horrendously nervous and hate talking in front of people. I'm worried I'll cry and look stupid or DP wont be able to speak in front of everyone!!! Booze cruise to France sounds a GOOD idea amapoleon .... :)

It isnt a small do with that many folk!

We didnt tell any one till the week before, then just told close family and friends.

I hired a frock, DH wore his posh wedding & funerla suit, bought some new shoes though!

We went to the posh pub round the corner from our house, my dad payed for 15 people to have tea. The pub made it gorgeous for us, set up lovely tables and stuff. I took in some baloons & banners.

We met other frinds at night in the same pub.

Because we only told a few people the week bbefore, we thought we would only have a few folk there....the reg office was packed to the rafters!
We spent about £1k as we were skint too.

Good luck, It will be a lovely day.

One of the nicest weddings I went to was for friends who were already living together, and had been for some time.

Instead of bringing presents, they asked all guests to bring a bottle of champagne. This provided all the alcohol for the event, and kept their costs right down.

They provided big troughs full of ice which we all shoved our bottles into which kept them cool all afternoon.

For food, they served scones with cream and jam immediately after the ceremony, and then had a pig roast/barbeque in the evening.

Waitrose do entertaining food - we got a delivery of it for DS's christening. Also think a hog roast would be fantastic! But make sure you allow for rain...

You will probably need to look at glass hire. If you're having it at your mums, i would suggest it would be nice to pay for a cleaner to come in the following day and clean up your mum's house (not nice to leave her with it).

Wedding car - not sure as I didn't have one (married in a hotel I stayed in the night before and that night, so just had to walk down 1 flight of stairs) but you need to book something!

Other things:
Photographer
Hair do (if you just want your hair blow dried, don't use the "W" word, just say you're going to a party, will be cheaper!)
new makeup

We didn't have a wedding car, as such. We just used a smart car, driven by a friend. When we left the church, I had arranged for DH to drive us away in a friend's very lovely porsche. It was wonderful to have 20 minutes to ourselves while everyone else went straight to the reception venue.

Good plan from fakeplastictrees about avoiding the "w" word with hairdressers.

One other thing I would definitely recommend is employing a few teenagers to do washing up, plate collecting, table clearing etc. It means that you and all of the guests can sit back and enjoy yourselves.

Alternatively, it is possible to hire crockery which you then send back, unwashed. (I think it costs a bit more if you don't wash it before you send it back).

yes we borrowed a car from a friend, my dad drove it.

Got my pal to cut and blow dry my hair, cost me £15!
Dhs cousin made me a smallish chocoalte cake, it was lovely, again cost me £15!

Yes, never say the 'w' word, this is a 'family party' only.

You could look at getting caterers in, my parents did this for an anniversary party in the summer. They'd also do the serving of the food, which would take some of the pressure off. Waitrose catering is great, though.

I had a small wedding - I think we were 43 in the end, which was about as small as we could get with us both having complicated 'blended' families. I had to tell very dear friends - whose wedding days I had been invited to and enjoyed - that I couldn't invite them, which was hard, but people understood.

We didn't have a photographer, just got a few random strangers to snap a few pics of us all in the park between the registry office and the hotel where we had the reception.

It depends on your style but I wouldn't buy a dress just for the occasion (mind you, I didn't even wear a dress, just a top and trousers). I went and had my hair cut that morning, poor old hairwash boy got the shock of his life when he said "doing anything interesting this afternoon?" and I said "yes, getting married actually" - hee hee.

This won't apply to you but I actually got a really good bargain at the restaurant where we had the meal. They thought it was an office Xmas party so I got a 20% discount for arranging it in late November [i.e. unfashionably early for Xmas] + a token for me, as party organiser, to spend in January. Inevitably being me I lost the token but even so.

You can be as low key as you want. Decide what you want to spend the money on - next Feb I'm going to a reception that is being held in (I think) some kind of corporate box overlooking a rugby match. Wouldn't be my thing at all but absolutely perfect for the couple in question!

ohh, how did I miss all your replies - sorry. I was looking on my iphone last night and it can't have refreshed the page! I booked the date with the reg office this morning so am all atizz.... and its not til August!

The registry office takes up to 36 so that is a perfect number for us really. I did a quick list of additionals for after the ceremony and it should be 60 max now assuming everyone comes which I doubt they will. DP was very excited about the idea of a pig roast and we have some friends who are caterers who might be able to provide it for us and their staff would be able to do all the serving then.

I LOVE the idea of scones and cream when we get back from the ceremony as it will be around 4.30 p.m. latest I would think so fizz and some cake/tea for the wrinkles sounds good.

I have also, after telling myself I liked a purple dress I saw in town today, just seen a white summer strapless dress from coast which is above the knee, very simple and just lovely (I think!!!) Linky here:

www.coast-stores.com/ALLURE-SHORT-DRESS/Bridesmaids/coast/fcp-product/2224665703

GOT TO CALM DOWN. Plz tell me I will calm down in a day or two....

Just another thing - the lovely wedding we went to did the speeches during the scones/cream/champagne bit which meant that everyone in the bridal party could then relax for the rest of the evening without the thought of giving speeches hanging over them.

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL dress!

Don't forget a wrap or something for the evening if you are going to be outside.

Can I just show this

adage.com/images/bin/image/large/weddingmag.jpg?1194024989

70ish is large we had 45 and it was still a fair bit of catering!

I was going to come on and give advice on small wedding, then saw your numbers. We had 12. Your numbers are a bit bigger than that.

My DB just had a full on wedding with all the trimmings with less than your numbers, but the suggestions here sound lovely.

Our wedding for 45 cost us £1k - no photographer (starting prices in surrey for that was about £800!) that included everything, dresses, suits, going away outfit (as I drove), food, drink, venue was free, flowers, cake, invites, dh's ring. Lots of friends helped out with things and it really did make it very special. we had a caterer and included crockery hire which they took away dirty.

although my wedding was another £1k - it was wedding/eternity/engagement ring in one. Absolutely no regrets as I wear my ring everyday and love it.

Buy that dress - is perfect! Your plans soundd very nice but 60 is not small!

haha, cargirl I Lol'ed at that, I'm going to print it out to keep me sane. Ok, what I probably should have done is labelled my thread 'desperate to get married but too tight to feed and water a load of people I don't like... tips plz'!!!!

See, we've never been to a wedding proper and the one I went to years and years ago was awful, big and pompus and horrible, I hated it. And I was a bridesmaid!!! Left a very bad taste. Funnily enough they got divorced within two years. They were idiots though. I suppose my thinking I want a small wedding is because the only ones I hear about are the big massive affairs and what we want, i.e. a nice, no frills quiet and enjoyable afternoon with our closest family and friends seems to pale into insignificance compare to other weddings, hence my thread title.

Really though, the reason we don't want the whole 'wedding with trimmings' is because I don't like the whole 'we have to do this, that blah blah'. We want a marriage not a wedding...... eugh, I've turned into bridzilla already

I promise this wont be me.....

We had 26, immediate family (siblings, parents and one grandma) 3 sets of friends and their children. That was it.
We had registry office, then back to house for catered buffet from my local sandwich bar (£120), turned up on platters, family put on tables. Flowers from supermarket the night before and put around hosue by MIL and I.
No speeches, everyone was asked to 'help' with booze so we ended up with loads. We went off to a local 4* hotel at 3ish leaving family and BM tidying up and staying then flew for weekend to amsterdam 2 days later. Cost about £500 including stay at very expensive hotel.
Used our own car as wedding car, were chaufferred by BM, but then we did drive a Jaguar

My planning is starting to add up already and DP and I can't agree on a photographer. DP doesnt want one and I just think we ought to as we might regret not having any lovely pictures but they seem so expensive. I think i have found a chap who takes photos for three hours from arrival at the Registry office then you get all the photos on a DVD rather than an album for £460. No idea whether that is reasonable or not but his portfolio looked good and all the others seemed to be £800 + for a half day or only take uncomfortable looking photos. Dilemmas dilemmas

Ikea do cheap wine & chanpagne glasses - £1.99 for 6 & then you could bung them off to the local charity shop. Might work out cheaper than hiring glassware.

at the price of photo's though!!

Good call jetli, I just went to asda too and bought loads of wine glasses than hiring. Small wine glasses for 19p each :)

Congrats raspberrytipple We did the same thing with the photographer - just paid for the CD and reproduction rights (make sure they're included) and I did our own album online after and was able to do small albums for parents etc. Ours charged £500 so I think £460 sounds about right

I'm sure M&S/Waitrose would be lovely but would work out pricey for 60. A local caterer and a BBQ/Pig roast would work out must cheaper. Friends of ours had the local Indian restaurant cater for theirs. It was fantastic

Thanks Tilly

Funnily, I was talking about photographers (DP is determined not to have one) my dad knows a forensic photographer who does nice photography on the side so he is going to ask him if he could take some! I asked if I had to act dead on all of them so he could get a good pic :)

We have decided to go with a caterer who has done a few family parties, she does party food.

Right, need some more advice.

We are getting married at 3.30 p.m. with 36 people at our local town hall, we will be done by 3.50 at the latest, we'll have some photos on the steps then make our way to the reception at my parents. We get home, have some fizz, so say at about 4.30 p.m. then we are going to cut the cake, speeches etc. The wedding is a Friday afternoon and as we are not doing a sit down meal, I'm wondering what time to set the buffet out from as we will have people coming a little later on. Do you think 6.00 p.m. would be fine, we could then tell people to arrive from 5.30 p.m. obviously knowing that not everyone finishes work early enough to get there for 5.30! but it really is supposed to be a very relaxed/informal garden party so 6.00 p.m. for buffet would be 2 and a half hrs after the ceremony (games on the garden if it's dry or mingling if wet in between the speeches etc just not sure on timings...... thought about leaving some nibbles on tables for people to have when we get back rather than do canapes.... any ideas or do you think 6.00 p.m would be ok?

I reckon 6pm sounds fine. People will have eaten lunch so they're certainly not going to starve waiting until 6 . Any earlier and it won't be much good for your evening guests. A few olives, nuts, crisps dotted around should be more than enough to people going.

Are you sorted for readings/music etc for the ceremony ?

Meant to say, I know a couple of people who have used an ebay seller for wedding dresses (one based in China who does "copies' of designer bridal frocks) and they have all been really pleased with the results. You definitely need a few mornings dress shopping first though to get an idea of what suits you/what you like etc.