Weddings...

[Littlepeahead]

Me and Stu in our jeans, at the courthouse in the small town of Baldwinsville, Syracuse, New York State. We made the maximum donation allowed to the Baldwinsville County Sheriff for her time (which goes to charity) and that was $75.

It was spur of the moment as we were out there visiting an old friend who'd emigrated to the USA, he was our witness. It was snowing, -14 degrees and we said our very brief vows outside on the bank of the river.

We told everyone, including our parents, a few weeks after we got back and didn't bother with a party.

So a wedding for under £50, and I have never regretted doing it that way at all.

My wedding was the two of us, our ten month old daughter and 4 guests at Kendal Registry Office, followed by a pizza! With so few of us it was very intimate and emotional., a very special day, and cheap.



Shame he turned out to be such a w***er!!!

Originally Posted by Alpinestarhero

...they don't work out cheap do they

Should have thought about it before you popped the question, shouldn't you ?

Seriously speaking though, you're lucky you're not from a traditional Polish family, where a small wedding would be 60+ guests, with all the trimmings and an additional after party day when you invite the family members staying over + other peops who did not make it to the main guest list.. In the part of Poland I come from, you are also supposed to provide 2-3 different types of cake which is distributed amongst neighbours, at work (yours and your parents) etc.
I could go on , and on, and on about all the slightly weird (and expensive) traditions we do but I don't want you thinking that Poles are even weirder than you already think we are

One thing to take into consideration is that it is believed that the brides family should pay for all the food, invitations, etc, whereas the groom is responsible for the transport, the band and most importantly - the booze (which can actually cost quite a lot at a Polish wedding - ask Jambo)

consider yourself lucky sir

my parents set up wedding funds for me and my sister when we were born (its very old fashioned in an incredibly adorable way) which i just found out about as my sister got engaged on christmas eve.
my parents are gonna foot the entire bill, and its probably gonna end up being atleast £10k as they want to get married this august (they are insane) and last minute bookings are 5k and above for receptions, which i think is ridiculous as his parents havent offered to pay for anything what so ever, and hes 34 and not paying anything!
most places are around £50ph for food too!

could always try this site http://www.whirlwindweddings.com/

I feel your pain (or should that be anguish) Matt. Kerry and I got engaged just before Christmas and have been to a couple of wedding shows since. Some of the costs are simply stupid.

We won't have a huge budget either, but then we don't want a "show", just something nice that we'll treasure. Seems to be the best thing to aim for in our opinion.

You should try divorce mate, even more expensive

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

We had a beautiful, fantastic wedding which I'll never forget...

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

If your single don't get married...

Ahem. Anyway, since we were in Las Vegas on holiday, we thought we'd get a pink Cadillac to the Graceland Wedding Chapel and have an Elvis wedding. Including rings bought at a casino, flowers, photos, video, Reverend Lovejoy and dinner at Denny's there was change from £300.

If you're not there on holiday of course you'll need to add flights and accommodation, bringing the price up to about what you're thinking of spending on a cake.

[Messie]

I'm in the middle of planning my daughter's wedding. Luckily she wants the unusual rather than the expensive.
We've found beautiful dresses in the sales and hats as well! We're hiring the grand room in the Town Hall for 2 hours, which includes the ceremony and it'll be champagne for all there then back to my for a garden party (that's goingto be the expensive but - I've got to get the garden landscaped). Food and flowers all done by friends.
The next day loads of us are packing our tents to stay in a field in the lake district for a 'festival' pagan type of event. The field is on a farm belonging to the groom's family.

I'm paying for most of it - her father disappeared years ago, pratt!

Wedding organisation is a real pain if you want it to be 'your' day. BUT it is worth it.

We found that all the venues we looked at said the same thing "Come to us for you perfect day, tailored to your requirements - providing you have it the way we tell you to have it." All the venues we looked at first stipulated their caterers, their DJ's, their menus, their everything.

We ended up basically hiring a converted barn for the ceremony and a sailing club for the evening because we had complete control and choice of everything but the weather.

Total cost was about £13k but we pushed the boat out in lots of ways...

Suit hire - £750
Mini-moon - £300 (few days in York)
Honeymoon - £5k (3 weeks in china)
Dress - under £1k by quite a lot
Photographs - £250 (by two friends...got over 300 photos. 200 printed at 9x7, the rest at 5x7)
Ceremony venue - under £2k (sit down meal for 50, table wine, champagne, 8 b+b rooms)
Evening venue - (£350 + £800 buffet + £200 DJ + £500 band - we decorated it ourselves)
Cake - £350 + £250 for toppers - but they were amazing and worth every penny)
Rings - about £750 (Claires was custom made white gold, mine was cheap Platinum!)


Thats just a few of the outgoings. Add to that invites, table place cards, ballons, gifts, disposable cameras, thank you cards...the list goes on and on!