Tell me about your small budget weddings please!

[partypoopers]

I've been married before which cost several thousand £ and I don't want a wedding like that again. It was stuffy, full of people I didn't know and I felt under such pressure. If I got married again I'd like the smallest wedding imaginable. Registry office with immediate family and closest friends only, white dress from the high street, and a party/gathering in a nice pub or something afterwards decorated with some fairy lights and the chance to have a first dance. (Note: I'm not even engaged yet but all girls dream of their second wedding day right?

Who else has had a small small do and how did it cost you?

We did this. Register office. My dad, his mum, 2 kids and 2 friends with their 3 kids. Then a restaurant we pre booked a table and pre chose meals and brought our own cake. My dress was £35 from Bicester. I think the meal cost about £150. We went for 2 nights in a 'posh' hotel after which we used vouchers for! Bliss

My second wedding was very small, can’t remember the exact cost (30 years ago!). We got married in the register office, just three people there, two others joined us afterwards for lunch & then we went off on honeymoon. Very simple & straightforward. Very few guests, not even siblings (well one of them came), no one seemed to mind or if they did they didn’t say anything to us . No dancing though if that’s what you would like.

I didn’t have a white dress, just a nice day dress.

Dd's bridesmaid's dresses from tkmaxx cost £12 each!! Wedding dress off ebay for £25. Dh hired a kilt.
Older ds is a chef so he made the cake and cooked a selection of hot dishes after the registry office wedding (and photos in a local park) at our home. Guests were our dc and fil. Wedding night in quite local hotel with evening meal. Honeymoon was a llama trek and camping in Wales!!

Registry Office, meal in a nice restaurant. That was it. It must have cost about £1000 as people chose off the menu. My dress was about £400. We had 22 guests. No evening do, but hiring a pub function room is easy enough.
Several people said it was the most enjoyable wedding they'd been to as it was so low-key and relaxed.
Still married 12 years later!

Register office. Cream knee-length dress (not specifically wedding dress) found in vintage shop. Guests/witnesses were our children and my parents (his were dead). Children wore nice but normal clothes they already had. No friends or siblings. Meal in local restaurant. Bottle of champagne. Lovely. (less than £200 about three years ago, including giving notice and register office fee)

I know everyone mocks a destination wedding but you can fly to France have a registrar and have a stunning weekend wedding for less than £750. Good weather, lovely food and stunning scenery and honeymoon.n

Ours is small budget - less than £1500 for everything. Its second time for both of us.

Register office at 5pm on a Friday then we've got a function room at the cricket club with hot buffet and DJ. Just a party really. My dress is secondhand from eBay - £75. I'm doing my own invites and plan to do my own bouquet.

Oh and my niece is doing the cake and we aren't having cars or a photographer.

Oh and our rings were rose gold plated ones from eBay. Engraved and cost £50 for the pair. I've shown a few people (who are honest types!) and they've all said they don't look as though they only cost £25 each! Even if they only last 12 months we can buy one every year at that price 😂

We are going to a lovely small wedding next month.10 guests,Registry office,limo to smart hotel then canapes and drinks on arrival followed by a meal then use of a function room til late evening.Cant wait!

We had a registry office wedding - 6 guests on either side. Then went to local restaurant for lunch. We pre booked but didn't tell them it was for a wedding. Lunch and drinks cost about £300. Then we went to a naice local pub where we'd reserved seating and spent a couple of hours there. Other costs - dress £350, flowers £30, car, small cake (£50). We were home by 5pm - had lots of sex, ordered an Indian takeaway and drunk champagne.

We went on our honeymoon a week later and when we came back threw a party for friends and extended family. We had an amazing and unique venue for free and they catered a small buffet of breads, cheeses, pates etc. We had a much larger cake too. We also had a disco and cost of decorations. I can't remember what it cost, probably £300/400. Everyone who went raved about it and still talk about it to this day 9 years on (possibly something to do with the venue doing us very very cheap prices on the drinks). Similarly though the family who came on our wedding day also rave about that and how nice it was to spend time with us.

How would you do a cheap wedding if your town has closed its registry office?

I've been to two weddings with a small number of guests followed by a lovely meal in a restaurant. They both worked really well. I don't know how much they cost but I would say most of the money went into the meal and wine.

I am loving reading all of these stories and how cheaply you can do it all for. I think small and intimate is the way forward, no pressure of a ‘schedule’ and all the things that can go wrong.
Love the idea of getting married at 5pm then having the evening as the party.

secretly they’ve closed it?! How is everyone registering their births and deaths? How far is your nearest registry office?

@partypoopers Births and deaths at the town hall, weddings needs to go either to the next town or into the big city.

Next town would make timings really long and I just don’t know the town at all and the city would seriously push up prices.

At least it’s a long engagement and we can figure something out...

We 'eloped', just the 2 of us...a week break had already been booked so we married in Registry Office in the same village. Just the 2 of us, tattoos for rings, made my dress.

Sent too soon lol all in the wedding itself cost about £270.

Ours will be small, just us and two witnesses in town at the registry office. DH will probably wear jeans and a shirt, I've got a ivory lace skirt from eBay and a random top from the wardrobe with a small posy. Then we'll drive to a off grid rural cottage in Snowdonia that afternoon for 3 nights. Few hikes and walks around the countryside and a dip in the outdoor wood fired hot tub. Can't wait.

Ours cost around £2000 for absolutely everything. Main costs were the actual registration and food which was a fish and chip van and was amazing! Was about 50 people in total, reception was at the local cricket club and was £80 for the night. Put a bit of money behind the bar and had a deal on bottles of prosecco from M&S and hired glasses from Waitrose for free. No wedding party so no costs there and I got my dress online for £45. DH hired his suit and he did an amazing playlist on his old iPod. It was absolutely lovely...what I can remember of it!

Had 130 folk so it wasn't small but we didn't bother with lots of things. My dress was from Coast (£60); favours were pebbles off the beach with the person's name on it so it was their place card too; no photographer just got a relative with a decent camera to take a few important ones then everyone just sent me theirs; bridesmaid made the cake and decorated it; pal designed the invites; everyone pitched in and decorated the hall; collected sea glass and filled vases with it and water and floating candles instead of flower centrepieces; flowers out the garden for my bouquet; did our own hair and makeup. It was very easy.

Us! We had been together 11 years and had two kids. We got married in the local registry office, paid a bit extra for the bigger room that could seat up to 50 people. Outfits bought from the high street, made up my own flowers. Then all went back to our house for a party. We put a few gazebos up in our (not huge) garden. Got loads of bunting off amazon and fairy lights. Borrowed as many chairs and tables off family as we could and decorated with candles, tea lights etc. It looked lovely. We paid for all the booze and food and made a killer music playlist. We had the most amazing relaxed day with our family and friends that went on well into the night (I pre warned my neighbours haha). So many people said it was one of the best weddings they had been to. It probably cost us about £1500.

Just to add I got my FIL to take photos as he’s a bit of an amateur photographer and has a good camera. I bought the £35 wedding cake from Asda and bought a nice mr and mrs topper from amazon for about £3 and decorated with some dried flowers and nice ribbon.