Cheap Wedding Ideas

As most of you know, on a fiance visa, I'm not allowed to work for 6 months.  This means future Mr. Pmacca and I are on a tight wedding budget.

So we're trying to come up with a plan to have the wedding of our dreams, but also to have it as cheaply as possilbe. Here are a few ideas we've come up with already.

My mother will sing so we don't have to pay for music.

We're having the wedding at his mother's house so that saves on venue.

Guests will sit on blankets instead of chairs on either side of us.

Each guest will bring one flower to make up the brides bouquet.

Disposable cameras on each table or certain points in the room, so guests can take our wedding photos for us (okay, I got this idea from Buffy)


We need more ideas. If there are any ideas that you have, please share them. We will be most grateful!!

A friend in the US had a low-budget wedding a year or so ago. The intention wasn't really to save money, but they wanted a very outdoorsy, relaxed ceremony and reception, so it ended up being really inexpensive. She used old Mason jars on the tables as centerpieces, and had the whole bridal party go and pick wildflowers the morning of the wedding to fill them. It was gorgeous!

Sorry, but you can't get married at your fiance's mother's house unless it is a licensed venue.

The cheapest wedding you can have is at the register office. Where are you going to be living again? Some of the wedding rooms are very beautiful like the one I was married at in Coventry and it only cost 40 pounds to do it there. You can't have photos taken during the ceremony but it can be videotaped. They do give you time to have pictures taken of you both signing the register book. Your mother can still sing during the ceremony but the songs can't be religious. The total cost of my register office wedding was 103.50 which included the cost of giving notice, the ceremony fee and one copy of the marriage certificate. I spent 42 pounds on my flowers - a nice sized posey for me and 3 buttonholes for my husband, father-in-law and stepson.

I think a register office wedding would be your best bet. Good luck to you with your plans.

Quite right, Tanis. You can, of course, have the reception at his mother's house. Is that what you meant?

Sorry, but you can't get married at your fiance's mother's house unless it is a licensed venue.

The cheapest wedding you can have is at the register office. Where are you going to be living again? Some of the wedding rooms are very beautiful like the one I was married at in Coventry and it only cost 40 pounds to do it there. You can't have photos taken during the ceremony but it can be videotaped. They do give you time to have pictures taken of you both signing the register book. Your mother can still sing during the ceremony but the songs can't be religious. The total cost of my register office wedding was 103.50 which included the cost of giving notice, the ceremony fee and one copy of the marriage certificate. I spent 42 pounds on my flowers - a nice sized posey for me and 3 buttonholes for my husband, father-in-law and stepson.

I think a register office wedding would be your best bet. Good luck to you with your plans.

We know that we can't do that.  We are getting married in a registrar's office, but that means nothing to us.  We want a meaningful wedding for only us, and since we both are lovers of nature we want it outdoors.  The register is based on an old outdated and unspiritual system, which is something neither of us want.

The real wedding is the one we're talking about here.

We know that we can't do that.  We are getting married in a registrar's office, but that means nothing to us.  We want a meaningful wedding for only us, and since we both are lovers of nature we want it outdoors.  The register is based on an old outdated and unspiritual system, which is something neither of us want.

The real wedding is the one we're talking about here.

Your original post wasn't clear about what you were talking about. Sorry.

We know that we can't do that.  We are getting married in a registrar's office, but that means nothing to us.  We want a meaningful wedding for only us, and since we both are lovers of nature we want it outdoors.

I love outdoor weddings! If you're really handy, or know someone who is, you could make an arbor out of twisted branches. Then decorate it with flowers you've picked yourself.

Your original post wasn't clear about what you were talking about. Sorry.

It's okay.  Just trying to clarify

Get people to bring food & drink instead of presents? I know a couple of people who've done that.

Make your own invitations!

Let's seeee....

For my throwing bouquet, I'm making paper flowers that have things from the place we met printed on the petals.

I bought my dress on e-bay.  It was VERY inexpensive and it is beautiful.  It was custom made in Hong Kong according to my measurements.  I also got my veil on there as well...and a WHOLE bunch of other stuff.  E-bay is really the best tip I could give you.  There is tons of discount wedding stuff on there.

I bought a bunch of pretty paper with ferns embedded in it and some vellum to print the invitations on.  The two pieces will be tied together with a ribbon at the top.

Bridesmaids are carrying candles in glass containers instead of bouquets.  And due to the vast amount of candley stuff at the dollar store, this was INCREDIBLY cheap and looks great.  I got some cheap etching stuff and etched our monogram onto the glass containers.

For the disposable cameras...I'd recommend asking a few responsible friends or relatives to take all the shots you know you'll want.  Otherwise, you may end up with a bunch of kids getting ahold of the cameras and photographing the insides of their nostrils or something!

I don't think there will be any kids there, which might be a good thing.

You could have a BBQ for the dinner. We had our wedding in the summer, so we had a BBQ. I know it doesn't sound awfully romantic, but it is fun and very cheap.

You could make your own wedding cake. Jamie made our wedding cake. He made a raspberry cheesecake. We got some pillars from Marks and Spencer and made a two tear wedding cake.

As far as music, you can always hook a computer up with itunes (or whatever) to some speakers and play it out of there, if the future MIL doesn't want to sing the whole time.

You could have friends bring their own cameras. Since alot of people have digital cameras, they can always burn the photos on a cd and you can pick the ones you want and have them printed off. Having photos printed form a digital camera is very cheap.

You can get cheap flowers from the grocery store. I got some flowers from Waitrose for £4 and they lasted almost a month.

A vegetarian BBQ might actually be fun!

We will be on a rather tight budget as well, we have to be able to fly me back to the states to get my son, get a visa for him and then fly him there. And find a place in Bath.

So what we've discussed is things like making our own invitations, favors, if we can find a wholesale flower shop somewhere that would save a lot, we arent going all-out on the flowers but still the less money we spend the better

I am going to be talking to DF...thats the first time I have gotten to call him that!! Anyway something I will be talking to him about is seeing if there is anything we can purchase in the US before I go over to save some money. Such as the supplies for the invitations, favors, my shoes, veil etc. Anything that wouldnt be really that difficult to transport.

My fiance has a cousin who is a professional photographer so we will be going to him about taking the pictures. Of course wed offer to pay him but hopefully it would be cheaper than full price!

I am also seriously considering buying my dress online, I am going to go to shops and try some dresses that are almost exactly the same to see if I'd want the dress I have fallen in love with. Its a lot cheaper, since they are the manufacturer of the dresses before they get the brand name on them.

I will only not skimp (much) on one thing, that being the cake. I have been told fruitcake is the common wedding cake there, which no offense to any of you that are English but I really dont like fruitcake I will be willing to pay more to find a baker that does what I think of when I think wedding cake. Also I am going to use fresh flowers which are cheaper than sugarpaste.

Anything I can think of to make things cheaper..as I said the budget will be pretty tight.

Oh and the venue, I really wanted an outdoor wedding but I think I found the place and its not that expensive. A lot of them are ridiculous prices but I found this one out of sheer luck!

Katrina