English wedding customs & where to get married???

I'm gettin' hitched in Kent early next year - but I'm not there yet to do any planning. I found the site www.akentishwedding.com - but honestly, the ceremony and reception venues are OUT OF CONTROL expensive!!
Is there such thing as an inexpensive venue where we can hold our ceremony and reception?

Also, English weddings seem to be, in general, a larger production than American weddings, with the ceremony, drinks receptions, wedding breakfast, and night reception. We want to have about 40 people at our ceremony, and another 60 at the evening bit. In America, there's plenty of ways to do it on a small budget (i.e. dessert reception, get married outside at a park, etc.). Are there any options in England to cut costs and still have a decent amount of guests at the event??

I've known a few people that just did a registry office wedding and then reception following at a pub or something similar. I got married in the US and my British inlaws loved how we got straight onto dancing after eating instead of the whole long day of wedding breakfast then night reception. If you just want to do one or the other its your wedding, so go for what you want.

Just because most Uk weddings have a wedding breakfast and a seperate evening do doesn't mean it's required.  We didn't!

I would definitely recommend checking out http://www.hitched.co.uk for more reasonable venues in Kent (ours was in the west Midlands so I'm no help there). 

If you are at all crafty, you can make your own decorations.  My SIL made our cake (which was absolutely delicious dense chocolate cake with thick white chocolate ganache icing) and she's made hers as well (traditional fruitcake) for next month.

I've also got vendor recommendations for jewelry and candles if you want.

First of all, enjoy the planning as it can be stressful, but it will be an amazing time in your life!!

In terms of cost, I would say to first figure out what is important to you and your fiance and don't worry about what is usually done.  Think about what you want and then you can go from there.

I think there's nothing wrong with doing a dessert reception if that's what you want.  What I found in planning - I had my wedding in Cirencester in the UK and planned from the States just last year - is that the venue may say that things typically aren't done a certain way in the UK, but if you say that's what you want, they're willing to customize to whatever you want.

In all of it, remember that you are the customer and more importantly the bride!!!! 

Wishing you much luck and happiness during this time and do let us know if you need more advice!!

Our night reception consisted of putting a tab behind the bar, and once that was gone, it was gone.  This was helpful because everyone knew that we couldn't afford any more than what was there.  That was one of our cost saving measures.  Hope that helps!  Good luck with the planning!   

We had 20 people altogether (including the two of us)...pre-ceremony open bar (1/2 hour max), ceremony at 5-5:30-ish, followed by cocktails (Bucks Fizz) & canapes, followed by a sitdown dinner (wedding breakfast) with wine.  The free booze ended with the conclusion of dinner although guests were welcome to drink into the night on their own quids.

We got a 'package deal' from a local hotel (here in Leeds) - which because we kept our numbers down was relatively inexpensive by English standards (plus my in-laws paid for it all -- yahoo!).

Go to the council website for the area in which you're going to marry -- the marriages section of that ought to give you a list of approved premises for wedding ceremonies, which you could use to start weeding through your options.  Registry office weddings would be the most 'budget' alternative as was suggested previously here.

We had a registry office wedding. We wore full wedding gear and had a wedding car and professional photographer. We had a reception at a nice hotel and in the evening we had sort of a cold buffet/disco. It was really nice.

As many other people have said, you don't need to follow any kind of particular traditions.  We certainly didn't.  We had a mutt-wedding: partially American, Scottish, Italian, and English.  The guests all loved it and had fun because they never knew what was coming next.