Really don't want a registry office but realistically, what other options do I have?

[sharkirasharkira]

I am getting married in Cornwall in 2020 but my family and friends are spread out across the country.

For various reasons we are limited with days we can have the wedding - it has to be a Saturday in spring/summer.

Dp does not want a church wedding, which is fine as I'm happy for a civil ceremony. I really don't want a registry office as all the ones closest to us are horrible and you aren't allowed to decorate them. They are also too small to accomodate all the guests - we aren't having many (max. 50) but even if we just invite family members it still puts us at 35 which is over capacity for most of them.

Trouble is, I really don't know what my options are. Having a civil ceremony in an approved place (hotel etc) is a about £436 - all the places I've looked at that will even allow just a ceremony without a reception, a minimum spend, or exclusive hire of the whole bloody place are a minimum of £500 just for the room hire. So £936 JUST for the legal bit and the room to do it in. To have it in the registry office is £259.

We just can't afford not to have it in a registry office can we? Our budget is £5000 but I wanted that to include the honeymoon, which is a dream holiday that will cost about half of that. I thought £2500 would be enough for everything else but that just doesn't look possible right now. We're cutting back everything else we possibly can and doing as much DIY as possible.

But I'm so sad at the idea of that registry office. It's not where I imagine saying my vows to Dp, it's just a horrible soulless blank room in a concrete block near a main road, with a wall full of dead flowers. If we just nip down the registry office before or after the 'wedding day' to sign the legal papers, just the 2 of us, it will feel like a 'fake' wedding in front of our friends and family because the 'real' vows have either not been done yet, or have been done already. It will feel wrong to me because I'd be pretending it was real. The vows are the most important part to me!

Do I just need to suck it up and accept that we have no choice and do it in the registry? Or is there anywhere else? I just can't find anything remotely affordable

I don't know Cornwall at all to know if this is an option, but when I got married we hired a venue (a beautiful large community hall) for £250. Then paid a celebrant to come out which was £190. We decorated how we wanted to, I had some people to help (Mum and friends) they put up the decorations and did a small clean up at the end, but the venue would've charged us £100 for cleaning if we wanted to. So you could see about hiring a celebrant to come out to a venue of your choice... doesn't have to be a specific place IIRC, if you go for a community hall or similar (some are really gorgeous) just hire it for the day would be my advice - I wouldn't mention it was a wedding as some venues will triple the cost when you tell them.
Hope this helps?

Are there any nice town halls? We got married in the town hall, it wasn't as much as hiring a non-council venue, but it was a lovely building with stained glass windows, statues, marble staircase etc.

I've looked into it and there is a list of 'approved' venues that you can get married in in Cornwall - they are virtually all hotels, castles or stately homes, with the exception of a few ridiculously expensive tourist attractions like the Eden Project. It's £436 to get someone to come out to one of them, plus the cost of the room hire. That's such a huge chunk of our budget

So why Cornwall? Anywhere in Devon more appropriate?

Penzance Registry Office is in a nice building, worth a look.
www.cornwall.gov.uk/advice-and-benefits/cornwall-registration-service/cornwall-registration-offices/penzance-registration-office/

A friend of mine legally married in a registry office and then repeated the vows (with the ceremony glamed up as they liked to include music, readings etc) in front of friends the following day at a venue of their choice, decorated as they liked. I think a friend "officiated" at the second ceremony, it didn't matter, they didn't have to be qualified..

Have you tried St Ives Town Hall, it looks like you can get married there. It may be miles away from you of course!

Devon is too far really, it would mean a drive of over and hour each way, possibly longer, which I didn't really want to do since most of the guests are coming from far away.

The only registry offices which are big enough to hold all our guests are St Austell and Bodmin. I can't cut it down anymore than 35 as that would mean asking people to drive 500+ miles over the weekend just to attend an evening do which isn't really fair on them.

Have enclose pics, the one with the bright green carpet is Bodmin, the other is St Austell.

St Ives, Penzance etc are also too far really, it would mean adding on 1-2hrs driving for our guests, and make it logistically more difficult for us. Don't really want to go past Truro.

I wouldn’t write off the registry office first and wedding after. We did the registry office the day before in jeans and tshirts, no family (just close mates who were helping us pack our car with wedding stuff and set up the venue), no music, no readings and the shortest vows they do. At no point did it feel like our wedding - it was the legal preliminary so that once we had our wedding the next day we were married in the eyes of the law as well as our own and our family and friends’.

We spent the rest of the day decorating our venue and cooking, then stayed separately with close friends and didn’t see each other until the ceremony.

The next day a dear friend officiated for us at our proper ceremony. Beautiful music, gorgeous poetry, our actual vows which we’d carefully chosen to reflect our values, fancy frock, lots of loved ones, and because it wasn’t a legal wedding we were able to be outside which was glorious. It didn’t feel ‘fake’ at all: to me the important part of getting married was making a public commitment to each other in front of the people who we expect to help us maintain it. The registry office was just for the authorities really.

I loved our wedding, would do the same again.

If it helps, the idea of the modern marriage ceremony is quite new - in medieval England all you needed to be married was a verbal agreement between the 2 spouses. And it’s also worth remembering that in many other cultures weddings take several days.

Hope you have a great wedding however you do it!

You're asking for quite a lot here... would it help to write it all down and then prioritise them?

Someone will have to compromise; whether that's you about where you marry, you both about the cost, or your guests about the transport...

What are your plans for a reception? The easiest thing practically is to have ceremony and reception in the same place and there will just be one venue hire fee. The price is high because they're probably expecting you to hire it out for the day not just an hour?

Is there no chance you can save a bit more towards the wedding. Even £50 a month over two years will make a huge difference to the budget?

This is a list of all the premises currently licensed for weddings in Cornwall. Could you find somewhere to have just the ceremony and then find a village hall or similar to hold your reception - my sister in law had her wedding in a historic building and we went off to a hotel afterwards for lunch. The 'W' word didn't even feature in the hotel booking.

Alternatively, if you are happy to look at venues away from Cornwall the Youth Hostel Association have three properties that are licensed for weddings in the Peak District and Shropshire (I think). An unusual venue with accommodation included...

They don’t look that bad. They look like reasonably attractive registry offices, which is what they are. Honestly if you don’t have a big budget then a registry office wedding followed by a lovely party in a location of your choice will be fine. You are not Harry and Meghan or George and Amal, you are a normal couple having a normal wedding which will enable you to celebrate your marriage with loved ones without bankrupting you.

I don't like those registry offices either. The first looks like a funeral parlour and the green one - wow! Do they actually try to make it looks so un weddingly! The first one could be OK if you could decorate a lot.

Have a £50 statutory wedding locally. Just you and two witnesses. Then have a celebration with vows and ring exchange at a lovely non-licensed venue with all your friends and family.

I always wanted to get married outside but you can’t do that in the UK. Well you can but it’s not a legal marriage. So would you want something like getting married in a nice place outside and then you could go and have a quick ceremony in the office just to legalise it?

My friend in a similar position to you had a registry office wedding which was just the two of them on a different day and then went for a nice lunch.

She then had a wedding ceremony where her venue was which another friend did with no worries about it being legal. It was beautiful because they made it what they wanted and it was tailored to them.

Do it in Scotland instead? No 'approved' list.

https://www.humanism.scot/humanist-ceremonies/weddingscivilpartnerships/getting-married-scotland/

A few of my friends have done the legal bit just them and and parents as witnesses the day before then had the wedding the next day in fields with marquee and fun relaxed atmosphere. they did the whole walking down the aisle exchanging vows and making promises with a friend officiating. They have all been lovely and special reflecting the couples.

Your options are you either spend £900-odd quid to do do it legally somewhere you like or save £600 and do it in the registry office you hate. That's it. You have to decide what's more important to you but I would hazard a guess that keeping to a budget of £2,500 on a Saturday in Cornwall in Spring/Summer is going to be a challenge unless you DIY the food in a free venue.

If it were me I'd spend a bit more on the wedding and delay the honeymoon, and instead of gifts set up a honeyfund or similar. DH and I are only getting to go on our honeymoon about 13 months after our wedding day because he was on a six month tour and we had to save, but it's been nice to have it to look forward to. And we're not unusual- delaying the holiday for a few months is pretty common these days.

Could you hire a barn? Lots of them down that way. Decorate it up with bunting and lanterns and go for that sort of rustic festival feel? Would suit the Cornish vibe nicely x

One other idea if you really don't want to use a registry office - could you postpone honeymoon for a year, use whole budget on the wedding? Better to do that and get what you want on your special day. Lots of people I know seem to be honeymooning long after the wedding, and it does give something to look forward to when the big day is over so quickly x

What about getting married abroad?