Excited but need help !

[Beastiesandthebeauty]

So Saturday evening my partner said it's time for us to get married !

We have been together 5 years and had discussed it from the start ect. I will have my ' engagement ' ring soon and we are hoping to mary by June. We had a discussion and we both basically want only us and our dc present ( we dont see the need to spend loads when in process of buying a house and our families are just awkward). We actually met at gretna so that Is the first choice and going back to our meeting venue to stay just sounds perfect to me. However just with the venue ceremony and some pictures we already seem to be £2000. I guess what I'm asking is for other people's elopement experiences or cheaper side wedding days. I think for me I'm thinking go with gretna because I'm in love with that day in my head but everyone we know does the big weddings !

Congratulations!

I suggest that you marry at Gretna registration office (which is the main place for eloping couples) and then have your post-wedding drinks/meal/weekend break at the venue where you first met (hotel?)

We had a cheap civil partnership last year. Only thing different to you is that we had 18 guests. The cheapest we could do was £2500.

Info on admin and fees for the actual ceremony

Getting married in Dumfries and Galloway - Dumfries and Galloway Council (dumgal.gov.uk)

Looks like the venue you have in mind is one that adds quite a profit margin to wedding bookings

Just to add, if you don't live in Gretna you will have to pay twice to post your banns, once in the area you live in and once again at Gretna.

Can't remember how much that was but it is certainly cheaper to get married at the Registry Office and go to a nice Pub or Hotel for lunch will certainly help keep costs down.

When we looked at getting married at a Hotel the price didn't include the Registrars fee foe coming out to do the wedding and that boosted the price by a further couple of Hundred quid.

Congratulations! If you are open to other options, we eloped to Gibraltar (just me and my (now) husband). Cheap easyJet flights, a nice hotel, and just had to give a day's notice to marry (booked in advance). We hired a local photographer who took us all over including getting some photos with monkeys up the rock. We told the restaurant where we had lunch booked that we were getting married that morning (in case we were late) and they decorated it really nicely for us and made us feel very special. We did a bit of sightseeing the next day and then flew home and announced what we'd done to surprised friends and family. It was a few years ago now and so can't remember how much it cost but was definitely significantly less than £2000. It may not be everyone's cup of day, but we absolutely loved it and wouldn't have changed a thing.

Thank you guys especially sharing things I hadn't thought about in excitement 🙈A big bulk of it is indeed the registra attending outwith however I didn't realise they can do it via minister instead for a religious. Would love to do it abroad but 1 dc can't travel due to health. For us we literally don't want the food, drinks ect as 3 kids are sen, what we will do is at a later point when we have a babysitter we will have a meal out with close freinds. Gretna is mainly for the reason we met there and there is some nice scopes for photography although starting to look outside of area. I guess the main part of the day for us aside the obvious is keeping it as low stress as possible and getting some nice pictures. Didn't even think about having to declare twice so will have to look into that asap. This will be my second marriage but first was 'traditional ' and just not worth the stress tbh