Wedding budget

[Sylvarie]

Hi, so my partner and I have decided to get married after 13 years, long story but not the rush I wanted-I’m struggling to find actual answers online, I don’t want to do it registry office/Gretna green….I would like to do it outdoors somewhere pretty (we live in West Yorkshire) we only want our 3 kids and my parents who will be witnesses, no other guests no meal after just literally the ceremony…..any ideas how I go about this? Every time I google weddings outside no guests tight budget, all I get is places that cost 3k plus….I really do just want to pay the person performing the ceremony and do it somewhere pretty and cheap….do I just find a location and ask if we can pay them a fee to get married there? Can we get married anywhere? I’m stumped completely and we really do need to do it quickly ….. thanks for any help

OP - you can't get married anywhere - the place needs a license for registrars to perform a wedding, but you can get married in a register office and book somewhere for a non-official ceremony/party. Lots of places bump the price up when they hear the word wedding so instead maybe look for the kind of place you like the idea of - country house hotel, country restaurants, party venues and then take it from there. Congratulations! I'm sure you'll have a lovey time.

If you use Facebook, there are a few groups for micro weddings and elopements. Many members are American but some English. As above you can't marry just anywhere in England, but you could marry at a registry office.and then use a celebrant. We marry on Tuesday! Just us. We have booked everything ourselves. We have an Airbnb, gorgeous registry office, photographer and then a nice meal booked. We will be away for a few days at the city we marry in

I think you can marry in Scotland outdoors, but not in England.

There are a few places that do elopement / small weddings in the Lakes - will probably come in at around your budget.

As above, you can get married outdoors in Scotland but not in England, unless it’s somewhere like the gazebo of a stately home or a botanical garden that’s registered for weddings.

In Scotland you literally can get married anywhere the the registrar is willing to perform the ceremony, so you could look into booking a holiday cottage somewhere pretty and contact the local registrar to marry you on the beach or wherever.

What about something like this op?

www.hitched.co.uk/wedding-venues/outdoor-wedding-venues/west-yorkshire.htm?cmp=ADW-SEM-DSA-Wedding-Venues&gclid=CjwKCAjwqcKFBhAhEiwAfEr7zXKy4l-3dfTdpH2Ol8PB5dvmTHOBqwwE0qDSxw_QCfiO3NZtMuQ8ZBoC9dcQAvD_BwE

I work in the wedding industry, you can get married outdoors in England, in a fixed structure such as a gazebo, and I believe guidance will be changing to allow outdoor ceremonies at venues without gazebos etc where the vows can be exchanged outside then the register signed inside the licensed venue.

Your best option is to either find a venue that specialises in elopements (as a PP has said the Lake District has some and I know of one that just does the ceremony then a drink afterwards) or choose a registry office at a town or city you like then you could make a break of it.

You can say some initial legal stuff indoors then do your vows and the nice bits outside - that's what we did.

OP, if you want to make the trek to Cornwall I can send you the details of where we got married - it was perfect. Lots of accommodation and the couple that run it were amazing (they were our witnesses!).

Thanks all…I’m really wanting to do it outdoors, we aren’t wanting anything after the ceremony as this isn’t how we wanted to do things, we are thinking to renew are vows in 5 years and have the wedding we actually want, I shall have a look at the lakes elopement tho thanks for that suggestion :) my brother in law got married outdoors in Scotland so I just figured you could here too 🙄
Good luck trevthecat! I hope you have a lovely day!

Just seen your post…that look amazing! Thank you I will have a good look at it! Can I ask what did you google? As I am literally only getting big venues 🤨

Wee weddings in Scotland do lovely outdoor ceremonies but it's close to 3k. The rules in England are frustrating. My friend got married in a national park in Colorado and didn't even need a registrar or witnesses (though she chose to have some guests).

@Sylvarie

Just seen your post…that look amazing! Thank you I will have a good look at it! Can I ask what did you google? As I am literally only getting big venues 🤨

The link is from my google. Weddings outdoors West Yorkshire

www.outdoorceremonies.co.uk/venues/features/woodland-wedding-venues/

www.outdoorceremonies.co.uk/outdoor-wedding-venues/

We were going to do the legal bit in the registry office, it was costing £78 as we are just signing the form in an office in the library, and then having a humanist ceremony in our venue. Bowel cancer put paid to that so we had to change plans but worth looking into.

Do you have a favourite view in a national park? Can you have it there, not sure who you’d have to contact or even if, but all in all it should be quite a cheap way to do things and still get married outdoors somewhere nice and special to you both. You could even do it in your garden!

There are definitely places that don't need to cost that much at all!
We had 30 guests (covid) and had to plan a big variety of scenarios with the rules changing every 5 minutes, but none of them were expensive.
The ceremony was in a church (free to us aside from admin fee) but it sounds like registry offices are just the same.

The best tip I would give is to stay in a really nice location the night before and take pictures there before the ceremony. It can be a hotel, a bnb, or the house of someone with a beautiful garden. Looking at our wedding pics, it looks like we had a super expensive venue but we didn't. And we had so such a special time just for us taking pictures, and then for family that joined us, before things got busy.

For the meal, we did posh picnics because we needed something that could be transported anywhere the latest rules allowed - a private garden, a public park or an indoor venue.
It doesn't need to cost much at all!